I will not say that Philip's sleep was broken by this question, but it
undoubtedly recurred to his mind the first thing in the morning when he
jumped out of bed very late for breakfast, and the events of the past
night and the lateness of the hour at which he got to rest came back
upon him as excuses in the first place for his tardiness. And then,
which was remarkable, it was not the scene in the play in which he had
been most interested which came to his mind, but a vision of that box
and the man standing in front of it staring at him through the black
tubes of the opera-glass which came before Philip like a picture. Uncle
John had said it was at the ladies behind, but the boy felt sure it was
no lady behind, but himself, on whom that stare was fixed. Who would
care to stare so at him? It faintly gleamed across his thoughts that it
might be some one who had heard of the scholarship, but he dismissed
that thought instantly with a blush. It also gleamed upon him with
equal vagueness like a momentary but entirely futile light, consciously
derived from story books, and of which he was much ashamed, that the
inexplicable attention given to himself might have something to do with
the girl who had such keen eyes. Philip blushed fiery red at this
involuntary thought, and chased it from his mind like a mad dog; but he
could not put away the picture of the box, the girl putting aside the
curtain to look at him, and the opera-glass fixed upon his face. And
then why was Uncle John in such a hurry to get away? It had seemed a
capital joke at that moment, but when he came to think of it, it was
rather strange that a man who might be Solicitor-General to-morrow if
he liked, and probably Lord Chancellor in a few years, should make a
schoolboy rush from the stalls of a theatre with the object of being
first out. Philip disapproved of so undignified a step on the part of
his elderly relation. And he saw now in the serious morning that Uncle
John was very unlikely to have done it for fun. What, then, did it mean?
He came down full of these thoughts, and rather ashamed of being late,
wondering whether his mother would have waited for him (which would have
annoyed him), or if she would have finished her breakfast (which would
have annoyed him still more). Happily for Elinor, she had hit the golden
mean, and was pouring out for herself a second cup of coffee (but Philip
was not aware it was the second) when the boy appeared. She was quite
restored to her usual serenity and freshness, and as eager to know how
he had enjoyed himself as she always was. He gave her a brief sketch of
the play and of what pleased him in it as in duty bound. "But," he
added, "what interested me almost more was that we had a sort of
a--little play of our own."
"What?" she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. One thing that
puzzled him was that she was so very easily startled, which it seemed to
Philip had never been the case before.
"Well," he said, "the lady was there whom Uncle John met in the
park--and the girl with her--and I believe the little dog. She made all
sorts of signs to him, but he took scarcely any notice. But that's not
all, mother----"
"It's a good deal, Pippo----"
"Is it? Why do you speak in that choked voice, mother? I suppose it is
just one of his society acquaintances. But the thing was that before
the last act somebody else came forward to the front of the box, and
fixed--I was going to say his eyes, I mean his opera-glasses upon us."
Philip had meant to say upon me--but he had produced already so great
an effect on his mother's face that he moderated instinctively the point
of this description. "And stared at us," he added, "all the rest of the
time, paying not the least attention to anything that was going on.
It's a queer sensation," he went on, with a laugh, "to feel that black
mysterious-looking thing like the eyes of some monster with no speculation
in them, fixed upon you. Now, I want you to tell me---- What's the
matter, mother?"
"Nothing, Pippo; nothing," said Elinor, faintly, stooping to lift up a
book she had let fall. "Go on with your story. I am very much
interested; and then, my dear?"
"Mother," cried Philip, "I don't know what has come over you, or over
me. There's something going on I can't understand. You never used to
have any secrets from me. I was always in your confidence--wasn't I,
mother?"
It was not a book she had let fall, but a ring that she had dropped from
her finger, and which had to be followed over the carpet. It made her
red and flushed when she half raised her head to say, "Yes, Pippo--you
know--I have always told you----"
Philip did not remark that what his mother said was nothing after all.
He got up to help her to look for her ring, and put his arm round her
waist as she knelt on the floor.
"Yes, mamma," he said, tenderly, protectingly, "I do know: but
something's changed; either it's in me that makes you feel you can't
trust me--or else it is in you. And I don't know which would be worst."
"There is no change," she said, after a moment, for she could not help
the ring being found, and immediately when his quick, young eyes came
to the search: but she did not look him in the face. "There is no
change, dear. There is only some worrying business which involves a
great many troubles of my old life before you were born. You shall
hear--everything--in a little while: but I cannot enter into it all at
this moment. It is full of complications and--secrets that belong to
other people. Pippo, you must promise me to wait patiently, and to
believe--to believe--always the best you can--of your mother."
The boy laughed as he raised her up, still holding her with his arm.
"Believe the best I can! Well, I don't think that will be a great
effort, mother. Only to think that you can't trust me as you always have
done makes me wretched. We've been such friends, haven't we, mamma?
I've always told you everything, or at least everything except just the
nonsense at school: and you've told me everything. And if we are going
to be different now----"
"You've told me everything!" the boy was as sure of it as that he was
born. She had to hold by him to support herself, and it cost her a
strong effort to restrain the shiver that ran through her. "We are not
going to be different," she said, "as soon as we leave London--or
before--you shall know everything about this business of mine, Pippo.
Will that satisfy you? In the meantime it is not pleasant business,
dear; and you must bear with me if I am abstracted sometimes, and
occupied, and cross."
"But, mother," said Philip, bending over her with that young celestial
foolish look of gravity and good advice with which a neophyte will
sometimes address the much-experienced and heavily-laden pilgrim, "don't
you think it would be easier if it was all open between us, and I took
my share? If it is other people's secrets I would not betray them, you
know that."
Unfortunately Elinor here murmured, scarcely knowing what words came
from her lips, "That is what John says."
"John," said the boy, furious with the quick rage of injured tenderness
and pride, "Uncle John! and you tell him more, him, an outsider, than
you tell me!"
He let her go then, which was a great relief to Elinor, for she could
command herself better when he was a little farther off, and could not
feel the thrill that was in her, and the thumping of her heart.
"You must remember, Pippo," she said, "what I have told you, that my
present very disagreeable, very painful business is about things that
happened before you were born, which John knew everything about. He was
my adviser then, as far as I would take any advice, which I am afraid
never was much, Pippo," she said; "never, alas! all my life. Granny will
tell you that. But John, always the kindest friend and the best brother
in the world, did everything he could. And it would have been better for
us all if I had taken his advice instead of always, I fear, always my
own way."
Strangely enough this cheered Pippo and swept the cloud from his face.
"I'm glad you didn't take anybody's advice, mother. I shouldn't have
liked it. I've more faith in you than anybody. Well, then, now about
this man. What man in the world--I really mean in the world, in what is
called society, for that is the kind of people they were--could have
such a curiosity about--me?"
She had resumed her seat, and her face was turned away from him. Also
the exquisite tone of complacency and innocent self-appreciation with
which Philip expressed this wonder helped her a little to surmount the
situation. Elinor could have laughed had her heart been only a trifle
less burdened. She said: "Are you sure it was at you?"
"Uncle John said something about ladies behind us, but I am sure it was
no ladies behind. It might, of course," the boy added, cautiously, "have
been _him_, you know. I suppose Uncle John's a personage, isn't he? But
after all, you know, hang it, mother, it isn't easy to believe that a
fellow like that would stare so at Uncle John."
"Poor John! It is true there is not much novelty about him," said
Elinor, with a tremble in her voice, which, if it was half agitation,
was yet a little laughter too: for there are scarcely any circumstances,
however painful, in which those who are that way moved by nature are
quite able to quench the unconquerable laugh. She added, with a falter
in which there was no laughter, "and what--was the--fellow like?"
"All that I could see was that he was a tall man. I saw his large
shirt-front and his black evening clothes, and something like grey hair
above those two big, black goggles----"
"Grey hair!" Elinor said, with a low suppressed cry.
"He never took them away from his eyes for a moment, so of course I
could not see his face, or anything much except that he was more than
common tall--like myself," Pippo said, with a little air of pleased
vanity in the comparison.
Like himself! She did not make any remark. It is very doubtful whether
she could have done so. There came before her so many visions of the
past, and such a vague, confused, bewildering future, of which she could
form no definite idea what it would be. Was it with a pang that she
foresaw that drawing towards another influence: that mingled instinct,
curiosity, perhaps admiration and wonder, which already seemed to move
her boy's unconscious mind? Elinor did not even know whether that would
hurt her at all. Even now there seemed a curious pungent sense of
half-pleasure in the pain. Like himself! So he was. And if it should be
that it was his father, who for hours had stood there, not taking his
eyes off the boy (for hours her imagination said, though Pippo had not
said so), his father who had known where she was and never disturbed
her, never interfered with her; the man who had summoned her to perform
her martyrdom for him, never doubting--Phil, with grey hair! To say what
mingled feelings swept through Elinor's mind, with all these elements in
them, is beyond my power. She saw him with his face concealed, standing
up unconscious of the crowded place and of the mimic life on the stage,
his eyes fixed upon his son whom he had never seen before. Where was
there any drama in which there was a scene like this? His son, his
only child, the heir! Unconsciously even to herself that fact had some
influence, no doubt, on Elinor's thoughts. And it would be impossible to
say how much influence had that unexpected subduing touch of the grey
hair: and the strange change in the scene altogether. The foolish,
noisy, "fast" woman, with her _tourbillon_ of men and dogs about her,
turned into the old lady of Pippo's careless remark, with her daughter
beside her far more important than she: and the tall figure in the front
of the box, with grey hair----
Young Philip had not the faintest light or guidance in the discovery of
his mother's thoughts. He was much more easy and comfortable now that
there had been an explanation between them, though it was one of those
explanations which explained nothing. He even forgave Uncle John for
knowing more than he did, moved thereto by the consolatory thought that
John's advice had never been taken, and that his mother had always
followed her own way. This was an incalculable comfort to Pippo's mind,
and gave him composure to wait calmly for the clearing up of the
mystery, and the restoration of that perfect confidence between his
mother and himself which he was so firmly convinced had existed all his
life. He was a great deal happier after, and gave her an excellent
account of the play, which he had managed to see quite satisfactorily,
notwithstanding the other "little play of our own" which ran through
everything. At Philip's age one can see two things at once well enough.
I knew a boy who at one and the same moment got the benefit of (1st)
his own story book, which he read lying at full length before the fire,
half buried in the fur of a great rug; and (2nd) of the novel which was
being read out over his head for the benefit of the other members of
the family--or at least he strenuously asserted he did, and indeed
proved himself acquainted with both. Philip in the same way had taken
in everything in the play, even while his soul was intent upon the
opera-glass in the box. He had not missed anything of either. He gave an
account of the first, from which the drama might have been written down
had fate destroyed it: and had noticed the _minauderies_ of the heroine,
and the eager determination not to be second to her in anything which
distinguished the first gentleman, as if he had nothing else in his
mind: while all the time he had been under the fascination of the two
black eyeholes _braqués_ upon him, the mysterious gaze as of a ghost
from eyes which he never saw.
This occupied some part of the forenoon, and Philip was happy. But when
he had completed his tale and began to feel the necessity of going out,
and remembered that he had nowhere to go and nothing to do, the prospect
was not alluring. He tried very hard to persuade his mother to go out
with him, but this was a risk from which Elinor shrank. She shrank, too,
from his proposal at last to go out to the park by himself.
"To the Row. I sha'n't know the people except those who are in _Punch_
every week, and I shall envy the fellows riding--but at least it will be
something to see."
"I wish you would not go to the Row, Pippo."
"Why, mother? Doesn't everybody go? And you never were here at this time
of the year before."
"No," she said, with a long breath of despair. No; of all times of the
year this was the one in which she had never risked him in London. And,
oh! that he had been anywhere in the world except London now!
Philip, who had been watching her countenance with great interest,
here patted her on the shoulder with condescending, almost paternal,
kindness. "Don't you be frightened, mother. I'll not get into any
mischief. I'll neither be rode over, nor robbed, nor run away. I'll
take as great care of myself as if you had been there."
"I'm not afraid that you will be ridden over or robbed," she said,
forcing a smile; "but there is one thing, Pippo. Don't talk to anybody
whom you--don't know. Don't let yourself be drawn into---- If you should
meet, for instance, that lady--who was in the theatre last night."
"Yes, mother?"
"Don't let her make acquaintance with you; don't speak to her, nor the
girl, nor any one that may be with her. At the risk even of being
uncivil----"
"Why, mother," he said, elevating his eyebrows, "how could I be uncivil
to a lady?"
"Because I tell you," she cried, "because you must--because I shall sit
here in terror counting every moment till you come back, if you don't
promise me this."
He looked at her with the most wondering countenance, half disapproving,
half pitying. Was she going mad? what was happening to her? was she
after all, though his mother, no better than the jealous foolish women
in books, who endeavoured at all costs to separate their children from
every influence but their own? How could Pippo think such things of his
mother? and yet what else could he think?
"I had better," he said, "if that is how you feel, mother, not go to the
Row at all."
"Much better, much better!" she cried. "I'll tell you what we'll do,
Pippo--you have never been to see--the Tower." She had run over all the
most far-off and unlikely places in her mind, and this occurred to her
as the most impossible of all to attract any visitor of whom she could
be afraid. "I have changed my mind," she added. "Well have a hansom, and
I will go with you to see the Tower."
"So long as you go with me," said Pippo, "I don't care where I go."
And they set out almost joyfully as in their old happy expeditions of
old, for that long drive through London in the hansom. And yet the boy
was only lulled for the moment, and in his heart was more and more
perplexed what his mother could mean.