THE TRUSTEES' MEETING.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men
Their graces serve them but as enemies?
As You Like It.
'My Lord,' said Frampton, entering the library late one evening, in
visible perturbation, and addressing himself to Fitzjocelyn, 'there is
a person wishing to see you.'
'What person at this time of night?' said Louis.
'In fact, my Lord,' said the butler, hesitating, 'it is the young
person at Mr. Frost's.'
'Something must be the matter!' cried Louis, starting up.
'She would explain nothing to me, she insisted on seeing your lordship;
and--in fact--she was in such a state of agitation that I left her with
Mrs. Bowles.'
Louis lost no time in hurrying into the hall. Charlotte must have
followed Frampton without his knowledge, for she was already there;
and, springing with clasped hands towards Fitzjocelyn, she cried,
sobbing, 'My Lord, my Lord, come to master!'
'Is he ill? or the children?'
'No, no! but he'll be off, he'll be off like poor Tom!' exclaimed
Charlotte, between her gasps; 'but I've locked it!' and she waved a
door-key, and seemed about to laugh hysterically.
'Sit down, Charlotte,' said Louis, authoritatively, bringing a chair.
'If you do not explain yourself reasonably at once, I shall call Mrs.
Bowles, and desire her to put you to bed.'
She made an imploring gesture, sank trembling into the chair, and,
after a few incoherent efforts, managed to speak--'If you would but
come to master, my Lord--I know it is something bad.'
Louis thought it wisest to despatch Frampton at once to order the
carriage to be brought out immediately; and this so far pacified
Charlotte, that she could speak comprehensibly on the cause of her
alarm. 'He is in such a way!' she began. 'He went out to the
school-examination, I believe, in his cap and gown, this morning; he
was gone all day, but just at dusk I heard him slam-to the front door,
fit to shake the house down, like he does when he is put out. I'd a
thought nothing of that; but by-and-by I heard him stamping up and down
the study, like one in a frenzy, and I found his cap and gown lying all
of a heap in a corner of the hall. Then, Mr. Calcott came to call; and
when I went into the study, master had his head down on the table, and
wouldn't see no one; he fairly stamped to me to be gone, and bring him
no more messages. Mr. Calcott, he looked so sorry and concerned, and
sent in again. I was to say that he hoped some arrangement might be
made, if Mr. Frost would only see him; but master had locked the door,
and hallooed out that I was to say he was obliged, but couldn't see
nobody. So Mr. Calcott was forced to go; and there was poor master.
Not one morsel of dinner has he had. I knocked, but he would not open,
only said he did not want for nothing. No, not even when 'twas time
for Miss Catharine to come down. She thumped at the door, and called
'Papa' so pretty; but he never heeded, except to call out, 'Take her
away!' Charlotte was crying so much that she could hardly proceed.
'Then I knew it must be something very melancholy indeed. But
by-and-by he opens the door with a great jerk, and runs right up to the
lumber-room. I saw his face, and 'twas like a corpse, my Lord; and he
brings down his portmanteau into his dressing-room, and I hears him
pulling out all his drawers. 'He'll be gone!' I thinks, 'he'll be off
to America, too! And my poor mistress!' So I went up quietly, and in
secret, unbeknown to them all, and got my bonnet; and I've run every
step of the way--for you are the only one, my Lord, as can soothe his
wounded spirit; and I've locked both the doors, and here's the key, so
he can't be gone till you come.'
'Locked the doors!' cried Louis. 'What have you done? Suppose your
mistress or Miss Clara were ill?'
'Oh, no--no, it is not that,' said Charlotte; 'or why should he flee
from the face of his children? Why, I took Miss Salome up to the top
of the stairs, when she was screaming and crying with all her might,
and you would not have thought he was within a mile of her. No, my
Lord, no one can't do nothing but you.'
'I'll come at once,' said Louis. 'You did quite right to fetch me; but
it was a frightful thing to lock the door.'
Sending Charlotte to the housekeeper, he went to communicate her
strange intelligence to his father, who shared his dismay so much as
almost to wish to come with him to Northwold; but Louis felt he could
deal better alone with James. His fears took the direction of the
Italian travellers, knowing that any misfortune to them must recoil on
James with double agony after such a parting.
In very brief space the carriage was at Northwold, and desiring that it
should wait at the corner of the Terrace, Louis followed Charlotte, who
had jumped down from the box, and hastened forward to unlock the door;
and he was in time to hear the angry, though suppressed, greeting that
received her. 'Pretty doings, ma'am! So I have caught you out at
last, though you did think to lock me in! He shan't come in! I wonder
at your impudence! The very front door!'
'Oh, cook, don't!' The poor breathless voice managed at last to be
heard. 'This is Lord Fitzjocelyn.'
Cook had vanished out of sight or hearing before Louis's foot was
within the threshold. The study-door was open, the fire expiring, the
books and papers pushed back; and James's fierce, restless tread was
heard pacing vehemently about his own room. Louis ran hastily up, and
entered at once. His cousin stood staring with wild eyes, his hair was
tossed and tangled, his face lividly pale, and the table was strewn
with fragments of letters, begun and torn up again; his clothes lay
tumbled in disorder on the floor, where his portmanteau lay open and
partly packed. All Louis's worst alarm seemed fulfilled at once.
'What has happened?' he cried, catching hold of both James's hands, as
if to help him to speak. 'Who is ill?--not Clara?'
'No--no one is ill,' said James, withdrawing his hands, and kneeling
down by his box, with an air of feigned indifference; 'I am only going
to London.'
'To London?'
'Aye, to see what is to be done,--ship--chaplaincy, curacy, literature,
selling sermons at five shillings each,--what not. I am no longer
master of Northwold school!' He strove to speak carelessly, but
bending over his packing, thrust down the clothes with desperate blows.
Louis sat down, too much dismayed to utter a word.
'One morning's work in the conclave,' said James, with the same assumed
ease. 'Here's their polite reprimand, which they expected me to put up
with,--censuring all my labour, forbidding Sunday-classes, accusing me
of partiality and cruelty, with a lot of nonsense about corporal
punishment and dignity. I made answer, that if I were master at all, I
must be at liberty to follow my own views, otherwise I would resign;
and, would you believe it, they snapped at the offer--they thought it
highly desirable! There's an end of it.'
'Impossible!' cried Louis, casting his eye over the reprimand, and
finding that the expressions scarcely warranted James's abstract of
them. 'You must have mistaken!'
'Do you doubt _that_?' and James threw to him a sheet where, in
Richardson's clerkly handwriting, the trustees of King Edward's
Northwold Grammar School formally accepted the resignation of the
Reverend James Roland Frost Dynevor.
'They cannot be so hasty! Did not Mr. Calcott call to gee you?'
'An old humbug!'
'I'll go and see him this instant. Something may be done.'
'No,' said James, holding him down by the shoulder, 'I will not be
degraded by vain solicitations.'
'This must be that wretched Ramsbotham!' exclaimed Louis. 'Oh, Jem! I
little thought he had so much power to injure you.'
'It is as well you did not,' said James. 'It would have made no
difference, except in the pain it would have cost you; and the only
gratification in this business is, that I suffer because neither you
nor I would deny our principles. I thank you, Fitzjocelyn!' and he
straightened himself in the satisfaction of persecuted rectitude.
'You have very little to thank me for,' said Louis, wringing his hand,
and turning aside, as if unable yet to face the full extent of the evil.
'Never fear for us,' continued James, boldly; 'we shall struggle on.
Mens conscia,--you see I can't forget to be a schoolmaster.'
'But what are you about? Where are you going?'
'To London. You spoke to a publisher about my lectures on history;
they will serve for introduction. He may make me his hack--a willing
one, while I advertise--apply for anything. I must be gone!'
'You do not look fit for a night journey. You would be too early at
Estminster to see Isabel.'
'Don't name her!' cried James, starting round as if the word were a
dart. 'Thank Heaven that she is away! I must write to her. Maybe,
Lady Conway will keep her till I am settled--till I have found some
lodging in London where no one will know us.'
'And where you may run up a comfortable doctor's bill.'
With a gesture--half passion, half despair--James reiterated, 'There's
no staying here. I must be gone. I must be among strangers.'
'Your mens conscia would better prove that it has no cause for shame by
staying here, instead of rushing out of sight into the human
wilderness, and sacrificing those poor little--'
James struck his foot on the floor, as though to intercept the word;
but Louis continued, apparently unmoved by his anger--'Those poor
little children. If misfortune and injury be no disgrace to the
injured, I call it cowardly pride to fly off by night to hide oneself,
instead of living in your own house, like an honest man.'
'Live!--pray what am I to live on?' cried James, laughing hoarsely.
'You will not find out by whirling to London in your present state.'
In fact, Louis's most immediate care was to detain him for that one
night. There was a look of coming illness about him, and his
desperate, maddened state of mind might obscure his judgment, and urge
him into some precipitate measure, such as he might afterwards rue
bitterly for the sake of the wife and children, the bare thought of
whom seemed at present to sting him so intolerably. Moreover, Louis
had a vague hope that so harsh a proceeding would be abandoned by the
trustees; his father would remonstrate, and James might be able to
think and to apologize. He was hardly a rational being to-night, and
probably would have driven away any other companion; but long habit,
and external coolness, enabled Louis to stand his ground, and to
protract matters till the clock, striking eleven, relieved him, as much
as it exasperated James, by proving it so late that the last train
would have already past.
He persisted in declaring that he should go by the first in the
morning, and Louis persuaded him to go to bed, after Charlotte had
brought them some tea, which, he said, choked him. Deciding on
sleeping at No. 5, Louis sent home the carriage, with a note to his
father; and Charlotte pressed her hands together in a transport of
gratitude when she found that he was not going to abandon her master.
She did her best to make the forlorn house comfortable; but it was but
cold comfort, with all the fires gone out, and he was too sad and
anxious to heed it.
She was at his door early the next morning, with a summons more
alarming than surprising. She was sure that master was very ill.
There was James lying across his bed, half-dressed, turned away from
the dim morning light, and more frightfully pale than ever. He started
angrily at Louis's entrance, and sprang up, but fell back, insisting
with all his might that nothing ailed him but a common headache, which
needed only to be left quiet for an hour or two. He said it venomously.
'A very uncommon headache,' thought Louis. 'My belief is, that it is
little short of brain fever! If I could only feel his pulse! But it
would be very like taking a mad dog's hand. There's nothing for it but
to fetch old Walby. He may have some experience of refractory
patients.'
'Go home, Louis,' reiterated James, savagely, on opening his eyes and
finding him not gone. 'I tell you I want nobody. I shall be in London
before night.'
And starting up, he tried to draw the curtain at his feet, to shut out
the tardy dawn; but too giddy to persevere, he sank back after one
noisy pull.
Louis drew it completely, shaded the window, and would have settled the
pillows, but was not allowed; and obtaining an impatient grunt by way
of dismissal, he ran down stairs, caught up hat and stick, and set off
to summon Mr. Walby from his comfortable family breakfast-table. The
good old doctor was more concerned than amazed. He could hardly
surmount the shock to his trustee conscience, on hearing of the
consequence of yesterday's proceedings.
'I was much grieved at the time,' he said, as they walked to the
Terrace together. 'You will believe me that I was no willing party, my
Lord.'
'I could never believe that you would do anything hard towards any one,
Mr. Walby,' said Louis, kindly; and a few more like assurances led the
old man to volunteer the history of the case in confidence.
Ramsbotham had brought before the meeting of the trustees a serious
mass of charges, on which he founded a motion that Mr. Frost should be
requested to resign. Every one rejected such a measure, and the
complaints were sifted. Some were palpably false, others exaggerated,
others related to matters of principle; but deducting these, it still
was proved that the Sunday attendance and evening lectures were too
visibly the test of his favour, and that the boys were sometimes
treated with undue severity, savouring of violent temper. 'I must
confess, my Lord,' said Mr. Walby, sinking his voice, 'I am afraid Mr.
Frost is too prompt with his hand. A man does not know how hard he
hits, when he knocks a boy over the ears with a book. Mrs. Barker's
little boy really had a gathering under the ear in consequence;--I saw
it myself.'
Louis was confounded; he had nothing to say to this; he knew the force
that irritation gave to James's hand too well to refuse his credence,
and he could only feel shame and dismay, as if himself guilty by his
misjudged patronage.
Mr. Walby proceeded to say that, under the circumstances, the trustees
had decided on remonstrating by letter, after the examination; and it
was easy to perceive that the reprimand, which might have been wise and
moderate from the Squire, had gained a colour from every one concerned,
so as to censure what was right and aggravate what was wrong. Mr.
Frost's reply had been utterly unexpected; Ramsbotham and the
bookseller had caught at the resignation, and so did the butcher, who
hated the schoolmaster for having instilled inconveniently high
principles into his son. Richardson abstained from voting; Mr. Calcott
fought hard for Mr. Frost, but the grocer was ill, and only poor old
Mr. Walby supported him, and even they felt that their letter had not
deserved such treatment. Alas! had not Fitzjocelyn himself taught
Northwold that the Squire was not a dictator? Even then, Mr. Calcott,
still hoping that an apology might retrieve the day, had set forth to
argue the matter with James Frost, whom he could not suppose serious in
his intentions, but thought he meant to threaten the trustees into
acquiescence. The doors had been closed against him, and Mr. Walby
feared that now the step was known, it was too late to retract it. 'The
ladies would never allow it,' he declared; 'there was no saying how
virulent they were against Mr. Frost; and as to consideration for his
family, that rather inflamed their dislike. They had rich relations
enough! It would be only too good for so fine a lady to be brought
down.' Every one had some story of her pride, neglect, or bad
housewifery. 'And I can tell you,' said Mr. Walby, 'that I am not in
their good books for declaring that I never saw anything from her but
very pretty, affable manners.'
With these words they reached the house; and with sighs and murmurs of
'Ah! poor young man!' Mr. Walby followed Louis to the landing-place,
where they both paused, looking at each other in doubt how to effect an
entrance, Louis suddenly remembering that no presence would be more
intolerable to the patient than that of a trustee. However, there was
nothing for it but to walk in, and announce, as a matter of course,
that he had thought it right to call in Mr. Walby.
The extremity of displeasure brought James to his feet, and out into
the passage, saying, with grave formality, that he was much obliged,
and glad to see Mr. Walby as a friend, but Lord Fitzjocelyn was
mistaken in thinking him in need of his advice. Many thanks, he would
trouble him no further; and affecting a laugh, he said that Fitzjocelyn
seemed never to have heard of a bad headache.
'Acting does not mend matters, Jem,' said Louis. 'You had much better
confess how really ill you are.'
Excessive giddiness made James stagger against his cousin, and Louis,
throwing his arms round him, looked in great alarm to the doctor for
help, but was answered by something very like a smile. 'Aye, aye, sir,
there's nothing for it but to go to bed. If his lordship there had
seen as many cases of jaundice as I have, he would not look so
frightened. Very wholesome disorder! Yes, lie down, and I'll send you
a thing or two to take.'
So saying, Mr. Walby helped Louis to lay their unwilling invalid on the
bed without much resistance or reply, and presently departed, so
infinitely relieved that he could not help indulging in a little
chuckle at the young Viscount's mistake. As soon as he was gone, James
revived enough to protest that it was all nonsense, doctors must needs
give a name to everything; if they would only let him alone, he should
be himself and off to London in two hours; and that it was Fitzjocelyn
himself who was looking excessively ill, and as yellow as a guinea. He
would not hear of undressing and going absolutely to bed, and fairly
scolded every one out of sight. Good Miss Mercy, who had trotted in at
the tidings of illness, stood at the nursery-door, telegraphing signs
of commiseration in answer to Louis's looks of perplexity.
'At least,' she said, 'you had better come to breakfast with us, and
hear what my sister says--Salome always knows what is best.'
He soon found himself in the snug parlour, where the small round
breakfast-table, drawn close to Miss Faithfull's fireside chair, had a
sort of doll's-house air of cheerful comfort, with the tiny plates,
tea-cups, and the miniature loaf, and the complicated spider-legs,
among which it was not easy to dispose of his own length of limb.
The meal passed in anxious consultation. There might be no danger, but
the disorder was severe and increasing. James's health had long been
suffering from harass of mind, want of exercise, and unwholesome diet;
and the blow of the previous day had brought things to a crisis. There
he lay, perfectly unmanageable, permitting neither aid nor consolation,
unable to endure the sight of any one, and too much stupefied by
illness to perceive the impracticability of his wild scheme of seeking
employment in London.
Miss Faithfull pronounced that either Mercy or Lord Fitzjocelyn must go
and fetch Mrs. James Frost home.
'I was only thinking how long we could keep her away,' said Louis.
'Pray don't be shocked, dear Miss Mercy, but I thought I could nurse
poor Jem much better alone than with another dead weight on our hands.'
'They would neither of them thank you,' said Miss Faithfull, laughing.
'Depend upon it, she will know best how to deal with him.'
'Well, you see more of their household than I do, but I have never
dared to think of her! Do you remember the words, 'if thou hast run
with the footmen and they have wearied thee--''
'There are some people who can run with the horsemen better than with
the footmen,' said Miss Salome. 'You know we are very fond of young
Mrs. Frost. We cannot forget her sweetness when she lived in this
house, and she has always been most kind and friendly. I do believe
that to display the most admirable qualities, she only needs to be
roused.'
'To live in the house with Jem, and Jem's three babies, and yet want
rousing!'
'I have thought,' said Salome, diffidently, 'that he was only too
gentle with her.'
'Do you know how very severe you are growing, Miss Faithfull?' said
Louis, looking her in the face, in the gravity of amusement.
'I mean,' said Miss Faithfull, blushing, 'though of course I do not
know, that I have fancied it might be better for both if he could have
gone to the root of the matter, and set fairly before her the prime
duties requisite in the mistress of such a family. He may have done
so.'
'I think not,' said Louis; 'it would be awkward when a woman fancied
she embraced poverty voluntarily for his sake. Poverty! It was riches
compared with their present condition. Isabel on 150 pounds a-year! It
may well make poor Jem ill to think about it! I only wonder it is not
a brain-fever!'
'Lord Fitzjocelyn regrets that brain-fever,' said Miss Faithfull.
'Probably my ideas on the subject are derived from the prevalence of
the complaint in light literature,' said Louis, smiling. 'It would be
more dignified, and suit Isabel better. Poor Isabel! I hope I have
done her injustice. She behaved gloriously at the barricades, and has
a great soul after all; but I had begun to think heroines not
calculated for moderate circumstances. May they do better in no
circumstances at all! Heighho! how a heavy heart makes one talk
nonsense! So I am to fetch the poor thing home, Miss Faithfull.'
This was determined on, whether with or without James's consent; Miss
Mercy undertaking that she and Martha would help Charlotte, and dispose
of the children in the House Beautiful; and she went back with Louis to
fetch them, when little Catharine was found peeping through the bars of
her prison-gate at the top of the nursery-stairs, shouting lustily for
papa. She graciously accepted her godfather as a substitute, and was
carried by him to her kind neighbour's house, already a supplementary
home. As to her father, Louis found him more refractory than ever.
His only greeting was, 'Why are not you gone home?' He scorned Mr.
Walby's prescriptions, and made such confident assertions that he
should be off to London in the evening, that Fitzjocelyn almost
reverted to the brain-fever theory, and did not venture to hint his
intention to any one but Charlotte, telling her that he should now
almost think her justified in locking the doors.
Sending information to his father, he started for Estminster, very
disconsolate, and full of self-reproach for the hasty proceedings which
had borne such bitter fruits. The man and the situation had been an
injustice to each other; a sensitive irritable person was the very last
to be fit for a position requiring unusual judgment and temper, where
his energy had preyed upon itself. His being placed there had been the
work of Louis's own impetuous scorn of the wisdom of elder and graver
heads. Such regrets derived additional poignancy from the
impossibility of conferring direct assistance upon James, and from the
degree of justice in the hard measure which had been dealt to him,
would make it for ever difficult to recommend him, and yet the devising
future schemes for his welfare was the refuge which Louis's mind most
willingly sought from the present perplexity of the communication in
store for poor Isabel.
As he put out his head at the Estminster station, a familiar voice
shouted, 'Hollo! Fitzjocelyn, how jolly! Have you got James there? I
told Isabel it would be no use; but when she did not get a letter this
morning, she would have it that he was coming, and got me to walk up
with her.'
'Where is she?' asked Louis, as he jumped out and shook hands with
Walter.
'Walking up and down the esplanade. She would not come into the
station, so I said I would run up to satisfy her. I don't know what
she will say to you for not being Frost.'
'Do you mean that she is anxious!'
'It is the correct thing, isn't it, when wives get away from their
husbands, and have not the fragment of a letter for twenty-four whole
hours? But what do you mean, Fitzjocelyn?' asked the boy, suddenly
sobering. 'Is anything really the matter?'
'Yes, Walter,' said Louis; 'we must tell your sister as best we can.
James is ill, and I am come for her.'
Walter was silent for a few minutes, then drew a sigh, saying, 'Poor
Isabel, I wish it had not been! These were the only comfortable
holidays I have had since she chose to marry.'
Isabel here came in sight, quickening her pace as she first saw that
her brother had a companion, but slackening in disappointment when she
perceived that it was not her husband; then, the next moment hurrying
on, and as she met them, exclaiming, 'Tell me at once! What is it?'
'Nothing serious,' said Louis. 'The children are all well, but I left
James very uncomfortable, though with nothing worse than a fit of
jaundice.'
The inexperienced Isabel hardly knew whether this were not as
formidable as even the cherished brain-fever, and becoming very pale,
she said, 'I am ready at once--Walter will let mamma know.'
'There will be no train for two hours,' said Louis. 'You will have
plenty of time to prepare.'
'You should have telegraphed,' said Isabel, 'I could have come by the
first train.'
Trembling, she grasped Walter's arm, and began hastening home,
impatient to be doing something. 'I knew something was wrong,' she
exclaimed; 'I ought to have gone home yesterday, when there was no
letter.'
'Indeed, there--was nothing the matter yesterday, at least, with his
health,' said Louis. 'You are alarming yourself far too much--'
'To be sure, Isabel,' chimed in Walter. 'A fellow at my tutor's had
it, and did nothing but wind silkworm's silk all the time. We shall
have James yet to spend Christmas with us. Everybody laughs at the
jaundice, though Fitzjocelyn does look so lugubrious that he had almost
frightened _me_.'
'Is this true?' said Isabel, looking from one to the other, as if she
had been frightened in vain.
'Quite true, Isabel,' said Walter. 'Never mind Fitzjocelyn's long
face; I wouldn't go if I were you! Don't spoil the holidays.'
'I must go, Walter dear,' said Isabel, 'but I do not think Lord
Fitzjocelyn would play with my fears. Either he is very ill, or
something else is wrong.'
'You have guessed it, Isabel,' said Louis. 'This illness is partly the
effect of distress of mind.'
'That horrid meeting of trustees!' cried Isabel. 'I am sure they have
been impertinent.'
'They objected to some of his doings; he answered by threatening to
resign, and I am sorry to say that the opposition set prevailed to have
his resignation accepted.'
'A very good thing too,' cried Sir Walter. 'I always thought that
school a shabby concern. To be under a lot of butchers and bakers,
and nothing but cads among the boys! He ought to be heartily glad to
be rid of the crew.'
Isabel's indignation was checked by a sort of melancholy amusement at
her brother's view, but Louis doubted whether she realized the weight
of her own words as she answered--'Unfortunately, Walter, it is nearly
all we have to live upon.'
'So much the better,' continued Walter. 'I'll tell you--you shall all
go to Thornton Conway, and I'll come and spend my holidays there,
instead of kicking my heels at these stupid places. I shan't mind your
babies a bit, and Frost may call himself my tutor if he likes. I don't
care if you take me away from Eton.'
'A kind scheme, Walter,' said Isabel, 'but wanting in two important
points, mamma's consent and James's.'
'Oh, I'll take care of mamma!'
'I'm afraid I can't promise the same as to James.'
'Ah! I see. Delaford was quite right when he said Mr. Frost was a
gentleman who never knew what was for his own advantage.'
As they arrived at the house, Isabel desired to know how soon she must
be ready, and went upstairs. Walter detained his cousin--'I say,
Fitzjocelyn, have they really got nothing to live on?'
'No more than will keep them from absolute want.'
'I shall take them home,' said Walter, with much satisfaction. 'I shall
write to tell James that there is nothing else to be done. I cannot do
without Isabel, and I'll make my mother consent.'
Fitzjocelyn was glad to be freed from the boy on any terms, and to see
him go off to write his letter.
Walter was at least sincere and warm-hearted in his selfishness, and so
more agreeable than his mother, whom Louis found much distressed, under
the secret conviction that something might be expected of her. 'Poor
Isabel! I wish she could come to me; but so many of them--and we
without a settled home. If there were no children--but London houses
are so small; and, indeed, it would be no true kindness to let them
live in our style for a little while. They must run to expenses in
dress; it would be much more economical at home, and I could send
Walter to them if he is very troublesome.'
'Thank you,' said Louis. 'I think James will be able to ride out the
storm independently.'
'I know that would be his wish. And I think I heard that Mr. Dynevor
objected to the school. That might be one obstacle removed.'
Lady Conway comforted herself by flourishing on into predictions that
all would now be right, and that poor dear Isabel would soon be a much
richer woman than herself; while Louis listened to the castle-building,
not thinking it worth while to make useless counter-prophecies.
The sisters were upstairs, assisting Isabel, and they all came down
together. The girls were crying; but Isabel's dark, soft eyes, and
noble head, had an air of calm, resolute elevation, which drove all
Louis's misgivings away, and which seemed quite beyond and above the
region of Lady Conway's caresses and affectionate speeches. Walter and
Virginia came up to the station, and parted with their sister with
fondness that was much mure refreshing, Walter reiterating that his was
the only plan.
'Now, Fitzjocelyn,' said Isabel, when they were shut into a coupe,
'tell me what you said about distress of mind. It has haunted me
whether you used those words.'
'Could you doubt his distress at such a state of affairs?'
'I thought there could be no distress of mind where the suffering is
for the truth.'
'Ah! if he could quite feel it so!'
'What do you mean? There has been a cabal against James from the first
to make him lay aside his principles, and I cannot regret his refusal
to submit to improper dictation, at whatever cost to myself.'
'I am afraid he better knows than you do what that cost is likely to
be.'
'Does he think I cannot bear poverty?' exclaimed Isabel.
'He had not said so--' began Louis; 'but--'
'You both think me a poor, helpless creature,' said Isabel, her eyes
kindling as they had done in the midst of danger. 'I can do better
than you think. I may be able myself to do something towards our
maintenance.'
He could not help answering, in the tone that gave courtesy to almost
any words, 'I am afraid it does not answer for the wife to be the
bread-winner.'
'Then you doubt my writing being worth anything?' she asked, in a hurt
tone of humility. 'Tell me candidly, for it would be the greatest
kindness;' and her eye unconsciously sought the bag where lay Sir
Hubert, whom all this time her imagination was exalting, as the hero
who would free them from their distresses.
'Worth much pleasure to me, to the world at large,' said Louis;
'but--you told me to speak plainly--to your home, would any
remuneration be worth your own personal care?'
Isabel coloured, but did not speak.
Louis ventured another sentence--'It is a delicate subject, but you
must know better than I how far James would be likely to bear that
another, even you, should work for his livelihood.'
When Isabel spoke again, it was to ask further particulars; and when he
had told all, she found solace in exclaiming at the folly and injustice
of James's enemies, until the sense of fairness obliged him to say, 'I
wish the right and the wrong ever were fairly divided in this world;
and yet perhaps it is best as it is: the grain of right on either side
may save the sin from being a presumptuous one.'
'It would be hard to find the one grain of right on the part of the
Ramsbotham cabal.'
'Perhaps you would not think so, if you were a boy's mother.'
'Oh!' cried Isabel, with tears in her eyes, 'if he thought he had been
too hasty, he always made such reparation that only cowards could help
being touched. I'm sure they deserved it, and much more.'
'No doubt,' said Louis; 'but, alas! if all had their deserts--'
'Then you really think he was too severe?'
'I think his constitutional character was hardly fit for so trying a
post, and that his family and school troubles reacted upon each other.'
'You mean Clara's conduct; and dear grandmamma--oh! if she could but
have stayed with us! If you could have seen how haggard and grieved he
came home from Cheveleigh! I do not think he has been quite the same
ever since.'
'And No. 5 has never been the same,' said Louis.
'Tell me,' said Isabel, suddenly, 'are we very poor indeed?'
'I fear so, Isabel. Till James can find some employment, I fear there
is a stern struggle with poverty before you.'
'Does that mean living as the Faithfulls do?'
'Yes, I think your means will be nearly the same as theirs.'
'Fitzjocelyn,' said Isabel, after a long pause, 'I see what you have
been implying all this time, and I have been feeling it too. I have
been absorbed in my own pursuits, and not paid attention enough to
details of management, and so I have helped to fret and vex my husband.
You all think my habits an additional evil in this trial.'
'James has never said a word of the kind,' cried Louis.
'I know he has not; but I ought to have opened my eyes to it long ago,
and I thank you for helping me. There--will you take that manuscript,
and keep it out of my way? It has been a great tempter to me. It is
finished now, and it might bring in something. But I can have only one
thought now--how to make James happier and more at ease.'
'Then, Isabel, I don't think your misfortunes will be misfortunes.'
'To suffer for right principles should give strength for anything,'
said Isabel. 'Think what many better women than I have had to endure,
when they have had to be ashamed of their husband, not proud of him!
Now, I do hope and trust that God will help us, and carry us and the
children through with it!'
Louis felt that in this frame she was truly fit to cheer and sustain
James. How she might endure the actual struggle with penury, he dared
not imagine; at present he could only be carried along by her lofty
composure.
James still lay on his tossed, uncomfortable bed in the evening
twilight. The long, lonely hours, when he imagined Louis to have taken
him at his word and gone home, had given him a miserable sense of
desertion, and as increasing sensations of illness took from him the
hopes of moving on that day, he became distracted at the thought of the
anxiety his silence would cause Isabel, and, after vainly attempting to
write, had been lying with the door open, watching for some approaching
step.
There was the familiar sound of a soft, gliding step on the stairs,
then a pause, and the sweet soft voice, 'My poor James, how sadly
uncomfortable you are!'
'My dear!' he cried, hastily raising himself, 'who has been frightening
you?'
'No one, Fitzjocelyn was so kind as to come for me.'
'Ah! I wished you to have been spared this unpleasant business.'
'Do you think I could bear to stay away! Oh, James! have I been too
useless and helpless for you even to be glad to see me?'
'It was for your own sake,' he murmured, pressing her hand. 'Has
Fitzjocelyn told you?'
'Yes,' said Isabel, looking up, as she sat beside him. 'Never mind,
James. It is better to suffer wrong than to do it. I do not fear but
that, if we strive to do our duty, God will help us, and make it turn
out for the best for our children and ourselves.'
He grasped her hand in intense emotion.
'I know you are anxious about me,' added Isabel. 'My ways have been
too self-indulgent for you to think I can bear hardness. I made too
many professions at first; I will make no more now, but only tell you
that I trust to do my utmost, and not shrink from my duties. And now,
not a word more about it till you are better.'