SERMON, BY A SINNER
Gilbert had said to Roger that he was only remaining a few days
longer at Thorsgarth; but as a matter of fact, he stayed till over
the New Year,—being able, seemingly, to put off the business which,
he every now and then remarked in a casual way, called aloud to him
from London. He could hardly have enjoyed himself much, during the
latter portion of his visit—at least, that was Eleanor’s feeling, as
she uneasily watched the course of events after the concert. For a
few days she was quite in the dark as to the exact state of things.
Of course she lay awake a long time on that particular night,
feeling uneasy about every subject to which her thoughts
turned,—Otho, Gilbert, Magdalen, Ada; she felt no sense of security
or comprehension with regard to any one of them. Why did Magdalen,
after behaving so well at first under the insult which Otho had put
upon her, fall off so lamentably afterwards—tamely submitting to his
behest, and allowing him to drive home with her?
And Gilbert—in whom, to a certain extent, she had put her trust—was
no more than a broken reed. He had promised to see that all should
go right, and, on the contrary, everything had gone wrong—just as
wrong as it could possibly go; and he seemed neither vexed nor
uneasy about it, but allowed things to take their course.
When she met Otho at lunch, after his quarrel with Roger, and saw
his sullen look, and heard his sulky, curt remarks and replies, she
felt miserable, in spite of telling herself that it was no affair of
hers; and she did not venture to inquire what had angered him. She
vaguely dreaded to hear his reply. The Christmas Day, which happened
also to be a Sunday, came; and the doctor’s Christmas-tree was to be
on the twenty-sixth. She had not seen Mrs. Johnson since the
concert, and was therefore in ignorance as to what had happened at
the mills, and it suited Gilbert for a day or two to say nothing to
her. So she lived on in uneasiness, and sometimes caught herself
thinking of her former life, which she had left six weeks ago, as if
it were a hundred years away from her; and of her uncle and cousin
Paul on their travels, as if they were inhabitants of another world,
journeying on seas and in lands unheard of.
Things were in this condition on Monday afternoon, and she was
sitting alone in her parlour in the waning daylight, when Barlow
came in with a message from Gilbert, to know if she would see him.
Her thoughts, which had strayed away from the painful present, were
suddenly pulled back again to their post. Instinctively bracing
herself to meet something disagreeable, she bade Barlow show Mr.
Langstroth up, and then sat and waited for him.
In a minute, however, he was with her; and, as usual, his presence,
unwished for, and even dreaded in anticipation, proved in reality
soothing, almost agreeable. Eleanor struggled against this power of
Gilbert to make himself agreeable to her; resented it deeply in her
heart, as a sort of disloyalty to his brother, to whom she had in
her soul given irrevocably and for ever, the place of master of her
heart and destiny. This last was as strong a feeling as anything
which could be experienced; but, nevertheless, Gilbert possessed
this power of being agreeable to her when he came, and the fact
puzzled and annoyed her more than she would have cared to own.
‘You are very kind to let me see you,’ he said at once, as he took
the chair she pointed to. ‘I have been wanting to speak to you for a
day or two—about Otho.’
‘Ah, I knew it was about Otho. Say on, and let us have done with
it.’
‘Perhaps that will not be so easy, either. However, I will say on,
as you suggest. Before I could speak to you, I wished to accomplish
a certain piece of business. I have now done so, and am free to say
what I like. I suppose you have been noticing how angry Otho looks,
without being able in your own mind to assign a cause for it?’
‘Unless the cause is that he is unhappy because he has been doing
wrong.’
Gilbert repressed a smile.
‘I am afraid I cannot comfort you by confirming that theory of
yours. By “doing wrong,” I suppose you mean his little escapade at
the concert the other night. Yes, I see. Well, I imagine he has
forgotten all about that by now. He is angry, or “unhappy,” if you
like, because he has been, and is being, put to great inconvenience,
and he doesn’t like it; it makes him uncomfortable.’
Then he told her about the quarrel between Otho and Roger, with a
sort of amused carelessness, as if he had been diverted by the
combat, and somewhat contemptuous of the combatants, which tone
puzzled and did not reassure his hearer.
‘Otho does not like office work,’ he went on, smiling openly. ‘He
has not had much of it yet; but the factories reopen to-morrow,
after the holiday, and then he will have to try a little of it. I
have telegraphed to a man whom I know to send down some one
suitable, and I have promised Otho to wait until the some one comes,
and just to put him in the way of business; but it may be a week or
so before my friend can hit upon the right kind of man. That makes
him very angry——’
‘You don’t seem to think anything of the way in which _he_ has
behaved,’ burst forth Eleanor, indignantly, the colour high in her
cheeks. ‘I think it is the most abominable thing I ever heard of—his
treating Mr. Camm in that way. It is—it is——’
Words failed her. She felt as if she would choke with anger and
disgust. Gilbert’s eyes were fixed upon her face; the slight smile
was still hovering about his lips.
‘You talk about what makes _him_ angry, as if it mattered. He
deserves to be put to inconvenience. He does not deserve to be
helped out of it. What becomes of Mr. Camm?’
‘Oh, I have seen Roger. We understand each other. But don’t you want
to hear all that I have to tell you? I have another piece of news.’
‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling from the way in which he spoke that
it must be news of some importance, and staying her anger to hear
it.
‘Something else has happened, which ought to have made him forget
his anger, one would think. I told him he ought to tell you about
it, but he says he won’t; it is all between him and her. He does not
feel inclined to talk about it, and, in short, I see you half guess
already. Yes; it is quite true. He got engaged to Miss Wynter the
other night.’
‘Engaged—to—Miss—Wynter!’ Eleanor stared at him incredulously. ‘She
took him—after what he had done?’
Gilbert laughed aloud.
‘She took him, it would appear. I thought you ought to be informed
of it. Probably all the neighbourhood is gossiping over it by now,
and you would have looked ridiculous if you had heard people talking
about it, and had not understood.’
‘I—oh, to be ridiculous is nothing, it seems to me, if one is not
disgraceful,’ said Eleanor, and paused, because she could not help
wondering what Gilbert felt about it himself. If she were to judge
from his present manner, she would have said that he regarded it all
from a superior standpoint, as a kind of joke amongst some
unsophisticated creatures, whose habits it amused him to study; but,
recollecting the very different tone he had lately taken, and his
present avowed conviction that he thought it serious enough to come
and tell her about it, since Otho would not, she felt that his
motives were quite beyond her comprehension. So she ceased to
speculate upon them, and turned her attention to another point.
‘It is all very extraordinary to me, and most disagreeable—the way
in which it has been done,’ she said, and again caught the curious
expression, half amusement, half—what? in Gilbert’s look. ‘You know
them both much better than I do. Do you think it will be for his
good?’
‘In a way, I am sure it will. It is perfectly certain that
whatever kind of woman Miss Wynter may be, as a woman, she is the
only one who has, or ever had, any shadow of influence over him.
She knows him thoroughly. She knows the frightful risks she is
running,—perhaps she does not feel them frightful—and she knows
the precarious state of his fortunes at the present time. With her
eyes open she has taken him. If they would or could be married at
once she might do a great deal to retrieve his affairs.’
‘I did not mean that exactly,’ said Eleanor, going on with what she
did mean, despite what seemed to her Gilbert’s look of mockery. ‘I
was thinking more of the moral influence. I should have thought that
a woman of higher mind—one who would have roused him to better
things——’
‘Yes, that is a very fine idea,’ said Gilbert, with ready
benevolence—‘that theory of overcoming evil with good. The thing is,
how far is it practicable? You speak as a woman, and a good woman. I
see as a man, and a man of the world. And speaking from my knowledge
of men in general, and of your brother Otho in particular, I should
say Miss Wynter would make him a far more suitable wife than the
best of women, filled with high aspirations and noble aims. Magdalen
Wynter understands him by reason of being composed of a similar
clay. Understanding him, she will lead him—at least, very often. A
saint would simply exasperate him into something ten times worse
than he is. You do not know the ease, the comfort, and the help it
is to be understood; how it can keep a wavering man in the right,
and drag a sinning man out of the wrong. Good people don’t need half
as much understanding as bad ones, and with due respect to you and
to current notions on the subject, saints and people who never do
wrong are not those who are the most sympathetic and comprehending.
It sounds very degrading, I daresay, but it is true—true as anything
can be.’
Gilbert spoke with much more emphasis than usual, and with a shade
of bitterness in his tone. Had Roger Camm been there, he would have
understood it in a moment; it would have confirmed some vague
suspicions long entertained by him. But to Eleanor, it seemed as if
Gilbert were composing an apology for wrong-doing; making it out as
being rather meritorious than otherwise. With emphasis equal to his
own, and with some bitterness in her tone also, she replied—
‘I daresay you may be right. Men of the world usually are right, on
the outside, at any rate; but I look inside, and it seems to me that
all this is very sad and dreadful, too. Life is full of these
horrible contradictions, and it appears as if you can never have any
good or beautiful thing without, as it were, a heap of dust and
ashes beside it, spoiling it all.’
Gilbert laughed a little, and she felt chilled—not vexed with him—as
she was conscious she ought to have been, but discouraged by the
fact that he was about to differ from her.
‘Why, of course,’ he admitted. ‘Is it not in the very nature of
life, as we know life, that it should be so? What are the good and
beautiful things, as you call them, except sacrifices and
aspirations or struggles after something higher and better than our
everyday fight and grind? And how can you have beautiful sacrifices
without something bad and mean to call them out? and how can you
aspire after the better, without a worse which makes the better
desirable to you? But for the dustheaps, I do not really see how the
shrines and temples would ever get their due share of admiration.’
‘Admiration!’ repeated Eleanor, indignantly; ‘as if one _admired_ a
holy place! I daresay you have risen superior to all such
superstitious considerations, but I say again, I think it is
horrible; and I maintain that I do not think Miss Wynter is a good
or a high-principled woman, and I am very sorry Otho is going to
marry her.’
‘Which of them do you look upon as the temple, and which as the
cinder-heap?’ asked Gilbert politely, but with a queer look. Eleanor
was furious with herself for laughing out, quickly and readily; but
she had to admit that Gilbert had the best of it. Then a sudden
gravity came over her; she caught her breath, and looked at him in
renewed bewilderment. In what light did he wish her to see him; how
did he desire her to view him, that he, who had cheated his brother,
and undermined his father’s integrity, should have the effrontery to
sit there and talk lightly about wrong being necessary to call forth
the higher life, and to say that temples could not be properly
‘admired,’ unless there were sordid details close to them, to
emphasise their beauty? Seen from her point of view, his
conversation was sickening in its hypocrisy and unreality; and
yet—again the feeling of surprise came over her—she was interested
in it; she could not feel revolted. Was the man’s personal influence
really so potent as to nullify all the effect of what she knew to
his disadvantage?
Gilbert had listened to her last words with an amused smile,
betraying by nothing whether she hurt him or not; his gaze met hers
steadily, and he continued to watch her while she silently
reflected. At last he said, lightly still, and coldly—
‘I see you are wondering what to make of me. It is very natural—in
you; and if you can trust me far enough to believe that anything
disinterested can proceed out of my mouth, I would suggest to you
not to go on wondering any more, but to listen to me, and
attentively consider what I have to say to you.’
Eleanor started, reddening with confusion, and feeling, with a
sudden revulsion, as some child might, which, instead of attending
to its professor’s discourse, had been speculating about the
wrinkles on the brow of the learned man, and was suddenly called to
order. An immense distance seemed to open up at once between her and
Gilbert. She remembered the sentiments she had attributed to him of
admiration for herself, and felt that egregious vanity must have led
her very far astray.
‘Indeed, I will listen to whatever you have to say. I think you are
very kind to take so much trouble about—poor Otho.’
‘“Poor Otho,” as you call him, is my oldest friend; I know him
better than any one else does, except perhaps the lady we have been
speaking of, whose acquaintance with him dates from the very same
time. You laughed just now—you could not help it. Does not your
common sense now explain to you that it is much better to take men
as they are, and provide them with the best that circumstances will
allow, instead of wanting to insist on their having for mate an
ideal which does not suit, and which they would hate if they had to
live with it? That is my view of the case.’
‘Very well,’ said she, resignedly. ‘Go on.’
‘I was about to observe that though Otho certainly appears disposed
just now to kick over the traces altogether, and not listen to
anything that any one has to say to him, yet I think I may still
say, I have more influence over him than any one else has. But upon
my soul, I do not know how long it may last. He has got some notion
into his head which, for a wonder, he has not confided to me, and I
cannot answer for the freaks which it may inspire him to play. I
wonder if you will think me impertinent for asking, did you know
much about Otho and his character before you came to live here?’
‘No—at least, my uncle, Mr. Stanley, used to say he was afraid Otho
was rather fast, and told me not to let him bet. I think,’ added
Eleanor, with rather a sad smile, ‘that if we had known him better,
we should not have wasted our words in that way.’
‘I think something still more probable is, that you would not have
wasted your time in coming here.’
‘I did not choose to come here. It so fell out that this was the
right place for me to come to.’
‘You had nowhere else to go?’
‘Practically nowhere. My aunt died, and my uncle’s health had so
given way that he and Paul—my cousin, and their only child—have gone
to travel together for an indefinite time. Where should I have
thought of coming to but to my _home_?’
She raised her head, and looked at him both proudly and sadly.
Gilbert’s eyes fell—not in confusion, but reflectively.
‘True,’ he admitted, after a moment. ‘And you intend to remain
here?’
‘Certainly I do. Why should I go?’
‘Oh, there are many reasons. It is not a pleasant house for you to
be in.’
Eleanor felt as if Otho’s conduct were being commented upon, and she
herself tutored by some one who was much more master of the
situation than she was. She did not exactly like it, but she was
powerless to resent it; she did not quite know whether she wished
even to resent it.
‘It is a dreary house,’ said she at length. ‘It is depressing to me,
too. But I don’t know that one may always leave a place just because
it happens not to be pleasant.’
‘Ah! You know Otho is going away when I do?’
‘Yes.’
‘I will answer for it that you will not see much more of him till
after the Derby Day, and perhaps not then. Don’t you think it would
be advisable for you to have a change, too?’
‘A change—in the depth of winter—after being here just six weeks?
No, I do not.’
‘You are very decided, I see. Pardon me for pressing the question
again. Are you quite decided to stay here?’
‘Yes. Why not? Why should I go away? It is my home, as I said
before,’ she said, looking at him rather impatiently.
‘You will be very dull. Otho, you see, has no scruples about leaving
you, and will not return an hour the sooner from the knowledge that
you are here alone.’
‘And if I like Bradstane, and wish to remain at Thorsgarth, in spite
of this dulness, and in spite of what Otho does?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Of course, in that case. There are compensations sometimes, which
go a long way towards repaying a little dulness and solitude. Every
one to his taste. If that is yours, I may as well proceed to tell
you that my advice to you would be to prepare for reverses.’
‘Reverses?’
‘Yes. Racing, and the sort of horse-dealing in which Otho
indulges—never to mention a dozen other expensive little trifles
that he likes, are not profitable occupations, and he has not found
them so. I speak plainly. You may live to see very evil days at
Thorsgarth, if you choose to remain here. You may live to see Otho
reduced to poverty, and, if your feelings are easily worked upon,
your own fortune in danger—that is, if you should let yourself be
deluded into the idea that you can help him out of his difficulties,
and set him on his legs again.’
‘I think I could meet reverses, if they came, without too much
lamenting.’
‘In addition to which he may at any time get married to your
favourite, Magdalen Wynter, and request you to find another home.’
‘I have a house of my own, and I should not wait to be asked to go.’
‘Oh, you mean the Dower House—a nice old house, that. It stands
quite near to my own old home, the Red Gables.’
‘Yes. I have thought sometimes it would be a pleasant house to live
in, as——’
‘As you are so much alone,’ interposed Gilbert, almost eagerly.
‘Don’t you really think that it would be much better than for you to
be here, alone, without chaperon or companion——’
‘Nay,’ interposed Eleanor, half-smiling; ‘don’t twit me with that. I
don’t want a chaperon; but if I did, how could I have one, when you
know very well that Otho says——’
She stopped. Otho had said that one petticoat in the house was more
than enough for him, and he would put up with no more. Gilbert
smiled.
‘Yes, I know what Otho says. I was not twitting you. I only wish you
would see that reason tells you to leave him, and not mix yourself
in his affairs.’
‘Your reason may. Mine does not. Mine tells me that Otho is my
brother; and I’m sure he is wretched with his own wrong-doing,
though you scoff at the idea. Do you mean to tell me that Otho is
happy?—you cannot. And my reason tells me that, sometime, I might
find a way of helping him. He might want to come home and have some
one to be kind to him, sometime. And I might be away, and never hear
of it till a long time afterwards. I don’t mean to say that nothing
would induce me ever to go to the Dower House; that is a different
thing. But I will not think of leaving Bradstane. Men’s reason is
proverbially superior to women’s reason, you know. Perhaps that is
why we don’t agree.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ said he, tranquilly. ‘After what you have said it
would be impertinence in me to urge anything further. Perhaps I have
gone too far already. I was under the impression that you were very
unhappy in Bradstane, but I am pleased to find that my fears were
exaggerated. I am very glad you have found mitigating circumstances,
and I hope the good may continue to outweigh the evil in your
estimation.’
He spoke politely and coldly. Eleanor sat silent and almost
breathless. Gilbert had never spoken to her thus before. She was
alarmed at his tone, and it brought back to her recollection all the
dissertations she had heard from Dr. Rowntree on the subject of his
infernal cleverness, as the worthy Friend called it. At the same
moment she recalled a descriptive sentence which she had heard Otho
utter not long ago. ‘Finding’—he had said, speaking of some
acquaintance who had long unsuccessfully wooed a lady—‘finding the
sentimental dodge no go, he took to intimidation, and fairly bullied
her into it.’
A convulsive smile twitched her lips. She did not believe now that
Gilbert’s altered tone arose from disappointed sentiment. A much
more prosaic reason suggested itself to her, namely, that the
sentiment had been assumed in order to amuse himself, and see what
the effect would be upon her. He must stand sorely in need of some
kind of amusement at Thorsgarth, she reflected, and that was the one
nearest to his hand. His present demeanour and sentiments were
probably those of the natural man. What he had just said convinced
her that he did not more than half believe in her desire to remain
in order to be of some possible service to Otho. She was more than
ever sure of this when he rose and said—
‘I will not detain you any longer, I know you are going out this
evening, and I know that children’s parties begin early, as a rule.’
‘Yes, that is——’
‘Oh, I know what a benevolent old gentleman Dr. Rowntree is,
especially to those who are his favourites. He would like to give
them all Christmas presents and kisses, young and old, big and
little. I wish you a very pleasant evening.’
She was silent still. Gilbert wished her good afternoon, and
departed.
From various allusions which he let fall before he went away, he
gave her to understand that he knew Michael had been at the doctor’s
party. Eleanor tried to ignore these hints, and to look openly at
Gilbert when he spoke of his brother; but her heart was hot within
her, with mingled fear and indignation; fear lest he should even yet
harbour some scheme of harm against Michael; indignation at what she
considered his audacity in naming him, and a miserable sense that
she had better not provoke him, or the results might be bad for
Otho. Gilbert sought her society no more; he had no more of those
pleasant, gentle things to say to her, such as he had uttered on the
night of the concert. She became convinced that he regarded her with
dislike, if not with enmity, and she withdrew herself as much as
possible from his and Otho’s society. Gilbert had yet another twist
to give to the tangled coil into which her thoughts had got,
concerning him, and he did it ingeniously. He was alone with her in
the drawing-room, after dinner, on the evening before the day on
which he and Otho were to depart.
He took a card case from his pocket, extracted a card from it, and
gave it to her.
‘That is my London address,’ said he, with the blandest of smiles.
‘If you should ever—since you will remain at Thorsgarth—find
yourself involved in difficulties with Otho, or in any other
circumstances in which the advice of a—business man would be of any
use to you, telegraph there to me, and I will be with you within
four-and-twenty hours.’
‘Oh, Mr. Langstroth——’
‘Don’t, pray, trouble yourself to express any gratitude. How do you
know what dark motives may lurk beneath my seeming kindness? We
leave by the seven-thirty train in the morning, so I shall not be
likely to see you again. I will therefore wish you good-bye now.’
‘Good-bye,’ said she, hesitatingly, feeling as if she ought to add
something to the baldness of the word, but utterly at a loss to know
what that something should be.
‘I shall, I hope, be here again for the shooting, if not before,’
said Gilbert. ‘I shall hope to find you well, and as pleased with
Thorsgarth—and Bradstane, too—as you are now.’
With which he left her, with his words, and the tone of them,
echoing in her ears, and with the shadow of his shadowy smile
floating still before her eyes. She was as far as ever from being
able to decide whether he was a gross hypocrite, or only a man who
had once done very wrong, and was now trying to do very right. That
he might be something between the two did not occur to her.