Some days have elapsed; we are in London, my father with us; and Roland
has permitted Austin to tell me his tale, and received through Austin
all that Vivian's narrative to me suggested, whether in extenuation
of the past, or in hope of redemption in the future. And Austin has
inexpressibly soothed his brother. And Roland's ordinary roughness has
gone, and his looks are meek, and his voice low. But he talks little,
and smiles never. He asks me no questions; does not to _me_ name his
son, nor recur to the voyage to Australia, nor ask 'why it is put off,'
nor interest himself as before in preparations for it--he has no heart
for anything.
The voyage _is_ put off till the next vessel sails, and I have
seen Vivian twice or thrice, and the result of the interviews has
disappointed and depressed me. It seems to me that much of the previous
effect I had produced is already obliterated. At the very sight of
the great Babel--the evidence of the ease, the luxury, the wealth,
the pomp, the strife, the penury, the famine, and the rags, which the
focus of civilisation, in the disparities of old societies, inevitably
gathers together--the fierce combative disposition seemed to awaken
again; the perverted ambition, the hostility to the world; the wrath,
the scorn; the war with man, and the rebellious murmur against Heaven.
There was still the one redeeming point of repentance for his wrongs to
his father--his heart was still softened there; and, attendant on that
softness, I hailed a principle more like that of honour than I had yet
recognised in Vivian. He cancelled the agreement which had assured him
of a provision at the cost of his father's comforts. "At least, there,"
he said, "I will injure him no more!"
But while, on this point, repentance seemed genuine, it was not so
with regard to his conduct towards Miss Trevanion. His gipsy nurture,
his loose associates, his extravagant French romances, his theatrical
mode of looking upon love intrigues and stage plots, seemed all to rise
between his intelligence and the due sense of the fraud and treachery
he had practised. He seemed to feel more shame at the exposure than at
the guilt; more despair at the failure of success than gratitude at
escape from crime. In a word, the nature of a whole life was not to be
remodelled at once--at least by an artificer so unskilled as I.
After one of these interviews, I stole into the room where Austin sat
with Roland, and, watching a seasonable moment when Roland, shaking off
a reverie, opened his Bible, and sat down to it, with each muscle in
his face set, as I had seen it before, into iron resolution, I beckoned
my father from the room.
PISISTRATUS.--I have again seen my cousin. I cannot make the way I
wish. My dear father, you must see him.
MR CAXTON.--I!--yes, assuredly, if I can be of any service. But will he
listen to me?
PISISTRATUS.--I think so. A young man will often respect in his elder,
what he will resent as a presumption in his contemporary.
MR CAXTON.--It maybe so: (_then, more thoughtfully,_) but you describe
this strange boy's mind as a wreck!--in what part of the mouldering
timbers can I fix the grappling-hook? Here, it seems that most of the
supports on which we can best rely, when we would save another, fail
us. Religion, honour, the associations of childhood, the bonds of
home, filial obedience--even the intelligence of self-interest, in the
philosophical sense of the word. And I, too!--a mere book-man! My dear
son!--I despair!
PISISTRATUS.--No, you do not despair--no, you must succeed; for, if you
do not, what is to become of Uncle Roland? Do you not see his heart is
fast breaking?
MR CAXTON.--Get me my hat; I will go. I will save this Ishmael--I will
not leave him till he is saved!
PISISTRATUS (_some minutes after, as they are walking towards Vivian's
lodgings._)--You ask me what support you are to cling to! A strong and
a good one, sir.
MR CAXTON.--Ay, what is that?
PISISTRATUS.--Affection! There is a nature capable of strong affection
at the core of this wild heart! He could love his mother; tears gush to
his eyes at her name--he would have starved rather than part with the
memorial of that love. It was his belief in his father's indifference
or dislike that hardened and embruted him--it is only when he hears how
that father loved him, that I now melt his pride and curb his passions.
You have affection to deal with!--do you despair now?
My father turned on me those eyes so inexpressibly benign and mild, and
replied softly, "No!"
We reached the house; and my father said, as we knocked at the door,
"If he is at home, leave me. This is a hard study to which you have set
me; I must work at it alone." Vivian was at home, and the door closed
on his visitor. My father stayed some hours.
On returning home, to my great surprise I found Trevanion with my
uncle. He had found us out--no easy matter, I should think. But a good
impulse in Trevanion was not of that feeble kind which turns home at
the sight of a difficulty. He had come to London on purpose to see and
to thank us.
I did not think there had been so much of delicacy--of what I may
call the "beauty of kindness"--in a man whom incessant business had
rendered ordinarily blunt and abrupt. I hardly recognised the impatient
Trevanion in the soothing, tender, subtle respect that rather implied
than spoke gratitude, and sought to insinuate what he owed to the
unhappy father, without touching on his wrongs from the son. But of
this kindness--which showed how Trevanion's high nature of gentleman
raised him aloof from that coarseness of thought which those absorbed
wholly in practical affairs often contract--of this kindness, so noble
and so touching, Roland seemed scarcely aware. He sat by the embers of
the neglected fire, his hands grasping the arms of his elbow-chair,
his head drooping on his bosom; and only by a deep hectic flush on
his dark cheek could you have seen that he distinguished between an
ordinary visitor and the man whose child he had helped to save. This
minister of state--this high member of the elect, at whose gift are
places, peerages, gold sticks, and ribbons--has nothing at his command
for the bruised spirit of the half-pay soldier. Before that poverty,
that grief, and that pride, the King's Counsellor was powerless. Only
when Trevanion rose to depart, something like a sense of the soothing
intention which the visit implied seemed to rouse the repose of the old
man, and to break the ice at its surface; for he followed Trevanion
to the door, took both his hands, pressed them, then turned away, and
resumed his seat. Trevanion beckoned to me, and I followed him down
stairs, and into a little parlour which was unoccupied.
After some remarks upon Roland, full of deep and considerate feeling,
and one quick, hurried reference to the son--to the effect that his
guilty attempt would never be known by the world--Trevanion then
addressed himself to me with a warmth and urgency that took me by
surprise. "After what has passed," he exclaimed, "I cannot suffer
you to leave England thus. Let me not feel with you, as with your
uncle, that there is nothing by which I can repay--no, I will not so
put it. Stay and serve your country at home: it is my prayer--it is
Ellinor's. Out of all at my disposal, it will go hard but what I shall
find something to suit you." And then, hurrying on, Trevanion spoke
flatteringly of my pretensions, in right of birth and capabilities,
to honourable employment, and placed before me a picture of public
life--its prizes and distinctions--which, for the moment at least,
made my heart beat loud and my breath come quick. But still, even
then, I felt (was it an unreasonable pride?) that there was something
that jarred, something that humbled, in the thought of holding all my
fortunes as a dependency on the father of the woman I loved, but might
not aspire to;--something even of personal degradation in the mere
feeling that I was thus to be repaid for a service, and recompensed for
a loss. But these were not reasons I could advance; and, indeed, so for
the time did Trevanion's generosity and eloquence overpower me, that I
could only falter out my thanks, and my promise that I would consider
and let him know.
With that promise he was forced to content himself; he told me to
direct to him at his favourite country-seat, whither he was going that
day, and so left me. I looked round the humble parlour of the mean
lodging-house, and Trevanion's words came again before me like a flash
of golden light. I stole into the open air, and wandered through the
crowded streets, agitated and disturbed.