Not a word was said of Archie in the house of Rosmore until the tired
and still sleepy party assembled to breakfast. Evelyn, who had not
closed her eyes till daylight, had slept late, and had not been
disturbed; and her husband had no opportunity of questioning her, had
he been disposed, until they met at the breakfast-table. The rest of the
party were all assembled when she came in--Rowland himself invisible
behind his newspaper, and taking no notice, while the others were
talking as gaily as usual, without any sign of being moved by any
knowledge of a catastrophe. Eddy Saumarez indeed had dark lines under
his eyes, but his talk was endless as ever. He gave Mrs. Rowland a quick
and keen look of investigation as she came in, but Eddy was the last
person in her thoughts, and she did not even observe the glance. The
conversation, in due course of the table, ran on without much
interruption from the strangers, who dropped in one by one, and to whom
the mistress of the house gave all her care.
“Archie was magnificent with Lady Jean,” said Eddy. “I never saw
anything so good as his bow. He put his feet together like a French
dandy of the last century. We’ve lost the art in our degenerate days.”
“Oh,” said Marion, “that was nothing wonderful, for it was a Frenchman
that we got our dancing from, Archie and me. He used to play a little
fiddle and caper about. Some people thought he was old-fashioned--the
MacColls--but they were just as ignorant! He taught me that way of doing
my steps, you know”--And Marion sprang up, lifting a fold of her dress
to exhibit a neat foot pointed in a manner which presumably her former
partner had admired.
“Oh yes, I know--you danced young Cameron’s heart away. As for mine, it
is well known I have got none. But did you see him in the reel? By
Jove, he sprang a foot from the floor.”
“Who is him?” said Rosamond--“Mr. Rowland or Mr. Cameron--you might make
your descriptions more clear.”
“Oh Archie! No. He wanted lightness perhaps a little in the waltzes, but
the reels he performed like one to the manner born.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Marion, “that he was more born to one than to
the other. We’ve danced very few reels, if that is what you mean.
Waltzes and polkas, and so forth, is what we were learned to dance--just
like other people. But it is true that Archie was never so good at it
as--”
Marion paused with a feeling of her stepmother’s eyes upon her, though
indeed Mrs. Rowland was far too much occupied by the other guests, even
had her mind been less troubled, to have any perception of the chatter
going on at her side.
“It is savage,” said Rosamond, “but it has a kind of sense in it;
whereas going round and round is delirious, but it has none. One enjoys
dancing very much, but one is rather ashamed of it after it is over. Why
should one spend hours doing nothing but go round and round? When you
look on and don’t dance, it is silly beyond anything in the world.”
“I dare say the wall flowers think so,” said Eddy. “But they would not
if they could get partners.”
“That is the worst of it,” said Rosamond reflectively. “Probably they
are far the nicest people in the room. I thought last night we were all
like the little figures on the barrel-organ that used to play under our
nursery windows, going round and round till it made one giddy to see
them. And to think that people with other things in their minds should
go like that a whole evening; and all the trouble that was taken to
prepare for them, and all the trouble to make things rational again, and
only know perhaps in the midst of all the nonsense--”
“What--in the midst of all the nonsense, Miss Saumarez?” said Mr.
Rowland, suddenly laying down his paper, which had much the effect of a
gun suddenly fired into the midst of them, for it was very rarely that
he interfered in the conversation of the young members of the party. His
face, which always had a weatherbeaten tone, was flushed and redder than
usual, which is the unattractive way in which some middle-aged people
show their trouble, instead of the more interesting method of young
folk.
“Oh nothing,” said Rosamond a little startled, and answering like any
shy girl suddenly finding herself called to book. She recovered her
courage, however, and continued: “I mean it looks silly to see everybody
twirling and twirling as if they had nothing to do or think of, when
they must have things to think of, even in the midst of a ball.”
Rowland threw down his paper and rose from his seat. “You are about
right, however you came about your knowledge,” he said, and walking to
the window stood with his large back turned towards them, staring out
and seeing nothing; indeed, as the windows of the dining-room looked
only into the shrubberies, there was nothing but trees and bushes to
see.
“It is not the fashion,” said Eddy, “to wear your heart on your sleeve,
thank heaven. And society’s the best of discipline in that way. When a
man’s hit, he must blubber out loud before the crowd like a child; I am
always at my funniest when I’m hardest hit--and as for the Governor,
Rose, you know when he’s bad by the way he laughs at everything. By the
way,” cried Eddy, “what’s become of Rowland, the lazy beggar? doesn’t he
mean to come downstairs to-day?”
“Archie was always lazy in the morning,” said Marion, “we never could
get him up.”
“Young Mr. Rowland should have a long allowance,” said a lady who had
been absorbed in her letters, “for he had double work last night. He was
ubiquitous, finding partners, finding places, doing everything. You
should have heard Lady Jean. He fairly won her heart.”
“And mine too,” cried Lady Marchbanks from the other end of the table,
who was known to copy Lady Jean faithfully in all her strongly expressed
opinions.
“That would show, according to Saumarez,” said a young man laughing,
“that to show himself so lively, he must have had something on his
mind.”
Rowland turned round from the window at which he stood, and gave a keen
look at the careless young speaker who had just appeared, then returned
to his contemplation of the somewhat gloomy landscape without.
“Are you studying the weather, James?” said Evelyn from her place at the
head of the table.
“That’s not a subject that repays contemplation in this country, Mrs.
Rowland,” said Sir John Marchbanks with his mouth full.
“It wants variety, it’s always raining: the glass may say what it likes,
but you’re sure of that.”
“The glass,” said another gentleman, strolling towards the window to
join the laird, “has little effect in this district. But just for the
fun of the thing, Rowland, what does it say?”
James Rowland was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, but
neither had he that super-admirable discipline of society which rouses
the spirits to special force in order to conceal a calamity. He turned
round upon the inquirer somewhat sharply: “The fun of the thing? I see
no fun in the thing. Corn still out on those high-lying fields, and
frost in the air, and the glass falling: it’s not funny to me.”
Nothing was funny to him at that moment, to look at his flushed and
clouded face. He had held himself in for some time, but the tension was
unbearable. Was Archie coming, and all as usual? was he sulking in his
room? was he--terrible question--gone; gone for ever out of his father’s
house? His trouble took, as in so many middle-aged minds, the form of
acute irritation. And yet he did his best to restrain himself.
“Oh, that’s true,” said the other, somewhat disconcerted. “Perhaps we
don’t think enough of the poor bodies’ bit fields. But they should learn
better than to put corn there. You will find no decent farmer doing
that.”
“Corn’s but a delusion at the best, in these days,” said a country
gentleman with a sigh.
“But if we are going out to take you your luncheons to the hill,” cried
the pretty Miss Marchbanks, “we must be sure of the weather. Oh, I am
not going out upon the hill if it rains, to go over my ankles in every
bog.”
Rowland had turned from the window and was looking round the table with
a faint hope of finding his son there. He had tried to smooth out his
troubled countenance, and at this speech he contrived to smile. “I will
go and consult the big glass in the hall for your satisfaction, Miss
Marchbanks,” he said.
“Oh, do, do! how kind you are! and we’ll all come too,” cried the girl.
But he did not wait for this undesirable result. What a relief it was to
escape, to get beyond reach of all those inquisitive looks, to reach the
shelter of the room which no one invaded. He hid himself behind the
heavy curtains and the closed door, only in time to escape the invasion
of the light-hearted company, whose voices and footsteps he could hear
coming after him. He had purposely refrained from asking any questions
about Archie, not willing to betray his uneasiness to the servants. His
wife had remained long downstairs after him, but even with her, who knew
everything, he was reluctant to ask any questions; and she had been
asleep when he was roused by the movement in the house to the shining of
a new day. He knew nothing--nothing from the time when, with angry
despair, he had gone upstairs and wavered for a moment at Archie’s door.
All he had wanted then was to pour out upon the boy the bitterness of
his heart. But now the snatches of broken sleep which had come to him
refreshing him against his will, and the enforced quiet of the night,
and the new beginning of the day, had worked their natural effect. A
longing came into his mind to dream it all over again, to see if perhaps
there might be any fact to support the boy’s vehement and impassioned
denial. No, no, he said to himself, there could be no proof--none! Some
disgraceful secret must lie beneath. It was not in Archie’s nature
(which was kind enough--the fool had a good heart and faithful enough to
his friends) to have refused to help his old comrade without some
reason. Perhaps, Rowland thought, this was to do that--the fool! he had
no sense about money. It might have been for this purpose--a good
purpose; a thing he had himself taunted him for not doing. The
perspiration came out in great beads on his brow--a cold dew of pain.
Could it be for this that he had made himself a criminal? or had he not
done it at all? But that was impossible. Who else could have done it? It
would be easy for him whose own handwriting resembled his father’s,
whose appearance with so large a cheque would have occasioned no
suspicion. It had been a little pleasure to Rowland, and warmed his
heart with a sensation of the mysterious bond of nature, to find that,
though he had nothing to do with his son’s education, Archie’s
handwriting had resembled his. And now the recollection struck him like
a sharp blow. And then the son--who could wonder that he came with so
large a cheque? But no, it was not he that had cashed the cheque, for it
had been wondered over, and young Farquhar--confound young Farquhar!--no
doubt some shady puppy doing well, good as they always are these
fellows to contrast with---- He had thrown himself into his chair, but
now he got up again and walked about the room. That the bank people
should be so anxious to cover young Farquhar at the cost of Archie--It
was not that; he knew there was something wanted to complete the logic
of that, but it came to the same thing. To transfix his own heart with
ten thousand wounds, to ruin the boy--for what was it but ruin to the
boy, whatever came of it, not a trick and frolic as the young fool
pretended to think, but ruin, ruin, all the same--for the sake of young
Farquhar, to save a little delay in his advancement! Good Lord! how
disproportioned things were in this life!
He was standing by the fire, idly looking at the calendar on his
mantelpiece, which marked the date 25th of October, a date he never
forgot, when the door was cautiously opened and Saunders, the butler,
came in, closing it again carefully after him. There was something in
the man’s eyes which already told half his tale.
“Lo, this man’s face, like to a title leaf,
Foretells the nature of the tragic volume.”
Rowland did not probably know these lines or anything like them, but he
watched Saunders’ approach with the same feeling. The butler came quite
up to him and spoke in a low voice, as if he were afraid of being heard.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said; “I thought I had better let you know;
Mr. Archibald, sir,--I’m thinking he has been called away suddenly.”
“What?” cried Rowland, holding by the marble of the chimney piece, and
feeling as if a touch would bring him down.
“Mr. Archibald, sir--I’m thinking he must have had some sudden call. His
room is lying in great disorder, and his bed has not been slept in this
night.”
He held by the marble of the chimney-piece for a full minute before he
came to himself; and then his lips hanging a little loose, his voice a
little thick--“Do you mean that my son--is not in the house?”
“He’s had some sudden call,” said the man, with instinctive endeavours
to lessen the shock. “He’s left no message. And there’s the gentlemen
all intent upon the shooting, and the ladies to go with their
luncheon----”
Rowland paused for another minute before he spoke. Then he said, “Mr.
Archie had to start very early for Glasgow on business. It was only
settled last night--something about that messenger, you remember,
Saunders, that came into the middle of the ball and looked so
frightened.” His voice became easier as it went on, and he laughed at
this recollection. “As I could not go myself, I sent my son. He may be
detained a day or two. Just go to Mr. Saumarez and ask him, with my
compliments, if he would take Mr. Archie’s place. Is Roderick ready?”
“Oh, yes, sir; quite ready and waiting. It’s a thought late: all the
gentlemen have been a little late this morning.”
“What can you expect, Saunders, after a ball? You can tell Mrs. Rowland
I would like to see her as soon as she has a moment to spare.”
It was so then; without remedy. Archie had gone--gone--not fled; that
could never be said of him; gone to wait for the police coming to arrest
him for forgery, as if that would ever be. God! his boy--Mary’s boy--the
only son; whom the ladies had been praising so for his conduct last
night; whom Lady Jean, they said--Lady Jean who was so ill to please,
who was not an easy person--and he was gone. Rowland felt his heart in
his breast as heavy as a stone. It had been beating very irregularly,
sometimes loudly, sometimes quieted down for a moment, now it seemed to
stop and lie heavy, like a stone. He waited till he heard the ladies’
voices die away, the men come out to the door where Roderick was
awaiting them, and saw the start from his window, himself unseen,
feeling a kind of contempt in his misery for the men who are so easily
amused. Old men, too: Sir John, as old as himself, so easily amused! but
then, perhaps, there was no son in this case to make his father’s life a
burden to him. “Has he daughters?” old Lear said, as if a man had no
right to be mad who had not. As for Sir John, tramping along in his
knickerbockers, an older man than Rowland, he had no son; and yet the
father, unhappy, felt a sort of contempt for him so easily amused, while
others were too sick at heart to bear the light. He went out of his room
when the coast was clear, and went to Archie’s room, which lay in the
disorder it had been found in by the servant who went to call him in the
morning: the drawers all open, the things thrown about. Nothing could
be more dismal than the aspect of the room in this abandonment. It is
terrible at all times to enter the empty room of any one whom we love,
especially when its owner is sick or in trouble. The unused bed cold, as
if it were never to be employed more; the air of vacancy; the emptiness
and silence, have an effect of suggestion more overwhelming than any
simple fact. And Archie’s room was not only empty, it was abandoned. His
father turned over the things upon the table in the miserable
preoccupation of his mind, not knowing what he did, and then lifted a
handful of papers, including Archie’s cheque-book, which was lying
there. How careless of Archie, he said, mechanically, as he carried them
away. There was no real intention of carrying them away. He had not,
indeed, thought on the subject at all, but took them up almost unawares.
Evelyn put her hand within his arm as he crossed the hall to his room,
and accompanied him there. She told him that Archie had gone, but in
what temper and disposition, softened, as she thought and hoped, and he
listened with his head bent down, saying nothing. He was angry, yet he
was soothed that she should be on Archie’s side. “You take his part
against your husband,” he said roughly, but he loved her better for it
than if she had taken his part against his son. There are artifices of
the heart which it is well to know. And he sat heavily thinking for some
time after she had ended her tale. Then he said abruptly, “I gave you
yon cheque to keep. Give it me back, please.”
Evelyn opened the drawer of a little ornamental escritoire, in which she
had locked that fatal paper, and gave it to her husband. Rowland was a
strong man, and he was not emotional, but the sight of the two round
marks which were on the paper with broken edges, when the tears had
pleaded unawares with their weight of saltness and bitterness the rage
and horror of the boy accused, was more than he could bear. He put it
down hastily on the table, and for a moment covered his face with his
hands. Those tears which anguish and shame had forced from his boy’s
eyes--who could have seen them unmoved? There was a relenting, a
melting, a thawing of horrible ice about his heart. “If he was guilty,”
he said, in a faltering voice. “Evelyn, if he was guilty, do you
think----”
She went and stood behind him, drawing his head against her breast. “You
could but forgive him,” she said, very low; “at the worst--at the
worst.”
“Come,” he said, after that moment of emotion; “it is just a question of
business after all. _This_ was never taken from any book of mine. You
see the difference--.” He opened a drawer and drew out his cheque-book,
pointing to her the numbers. The cheque was numbered in much more
advanced numerals than Mr. Rowland’s book. “That’s nothing in itself,”
he added, “for I might have borrowed a cheque from some one, or got it
at the bank, if I had been wanting for money then. I might have got it
from--anybody that banks there. Archie--I might have got it from
Archie.” As he spoke his eye fell suddenly upon his son’s cheque-book
which he had brought from the empty room. He took it up and opened it
almost with a smile. But the first glance struck him with a strange
alarm. He gave a frightened look up at her, throwing back his head for a
moment, then began slowly to turn over the pages. What an office that
was! Evelyn stood behind, looking over his shoulder, feeling that the
moment of intolerable crisis had come.
The smile was fixed upon his face; it changed its character, and got to
be the cynical smile of a demon upon that honest face. Over and over
went the quivering long leaves of the pink cheques in his trembling
fingers, and then----
“James, James!”
He put it in the place from which it had been torn, a scrap of the
perforated line had been left on the side of the foil, and fitted with
the horrible precision of such things. He laid it there exact, rag to
rag, then gave her a triumphant glance, and broke into a fit of dry and
awful laughter, such as the trembling woman, whom he pushed away from
him, had never heard before.
“There!” he said, “there! and what do you think of that, and your brave
young hero now?”
It seemed to Evelyn as if her spirit and courage were entirely gone from
her, and she could never hold up her head again. She had recoiled when
he pushed her away, but now came tremblingly back, and looked at it as
at a death warrant. Ah! no delusion--no fancy--it was as clear as the
cold dreary daylight that poured in upon them through the great
window--as clear as that Mary’s boy, who had looked so honest, who had
faced his accuser with such rage of upright indignation, who had
approached with such an unsuspecting look of innocence, as clear as that
the boy----
“No, no, no!” she cried out. “I will not believe my senses, James! There
is something in it more than we know.”
“Ay!” he said, “Ay, I well believe that--something more than you and me
know, or perhaps could understand--though he’s but twenty. Do you hear,
Evelyn--only twenty, with plenty of time----”
“Yes,” she cried, clasping her husband’s hand, upon which her tears fell
heavily, “plenty, plenty of time, thank God, to repent.”
“To do more, and to do worse,” he said, “repent! I believe in that when
I see it--but never before. Plenty of time to drag down my honour to the
dust--to make my name a byeword--to lay my pride low. Oh, plenty of time
for that, and a good beginning.”
He took a large envelope out of one of the drawers of the table at which
he was sitting, and methodically arranging the cheque in the place from
which it had been torn, at the end of the book, placed the cheque-book
in the envelope, and fastening it up, locked it into a private drawer.
“There!” he said, “that is done with, Evelyn. We’ll say no more about
it. We’ll just disperse, my dear, you to your farm and me to my
merchandize. The incident is over. It’s ended and done with. If we can
forget it, so much the better. It’s not very long to have had the
delusion of a--a--son in the house. It’s well it has been so short a
time. Now that chapter’s closed, and there’s no more to be said.”
“James! you will not abandon the boy for the first error--the first
slip?”
“Error--slip! I would like to know what kind of a moral code you have,”
he said with a smirk. “An error would be--perhaps staying out too late
at night--perhaps forgetting himself after dinner. I would not cast him
off for a slip like that. And if he asks me for money, he shall have it,
enough to keep him. But as for the slip of a lad of twenty who signs
another man’s name to a cheque for a thousand pounds----”
“Oh, what does the sum matter?” she cried.
“The sum matters--nothing. I would have made a coat of thousand pounds,
like old Jacob in the Bible. Ay, that and more. But never mind, it’s all
passed and over, Evelyn. My dear, you have behaved through it all like
an angel. God bless you for it. Now go away and leave me to my business,
and we will never mention it again.”
“I do not consent to that, James. I will mention him many times again.”
“Then you will force me to keep out of your reach, my dear,” her husband
cried. And yet he was thankful to her for what she said, thankful to the
bottom of his heart.
Thus Archie disappeared, and the waters closed over his head--but not
silently or without commotion. The men went out to the hill and made
tolerable but not very good bags; the ladies took them their luncheon,
and there was a very merry party among the heather, but when two came
together they asked each other, “What has become of the son?” or “What
have they done with Archie?” and the incident was as far from being
ended as human incident ever was.