If the end of the vacation were a relief on Lucy’s account, Albinia
would gladly have lengthened it on Gilbert’s. Letters from his tutor
had disquieted his father; there had been an expostulation followed by
promises, and afterwards one of the usual scenes of argument, complaint,
excuse, lamentation, and wish to amend; but lastly, a murmur that it was
no use to talk to a father who had never been at the University, and did
not know what was expected of a man.
The aspect of Oxford had changed in Albinia’s eyes since the days of her
brother. Alma Mater had been a vision of pealing bells, chanting voices,
cloistered shades, bright waters--the source of her most cherished
thoughts, the abode of youth walking in the old paths of pleasantness
and peace; and she knew that to faithful hearts, old Oxford was still
the same. But to her present anxious gaze it had become a field of
snares and temptations, whither she had been the means of sending one,
unguarded and unstable.
Once under the influence of a good sound-hearted friend, he might have
been easily led right, but his intimacy with young Dusautoy seemed to
cancel all hope of this, and to be like a rope about his neck, drawing
him into the same career, and keeping aloof all better influences.
Algernon, with his pride, pomposity, and false refinement, was
more likely to run into ostentations expenditure, than into coarse
dissipation, and it might still be hoped that the two youths would drag
through without public disgrace; but this was felt to be a very poor
hope by those who felt each sin to be a fatal blot, and trembled at the
self-indulgent way of life that might be a more fatal injury than even
the ban of the authorities.
She saw that the anxiety pressed heavily on Mr. Kendal, and though both
shrank from giving their uneasiness force by putting it into words,
each felt that it was ever-present with the other. Mr. Kendal was deeply
grieving over the effects, for the former state of ignorance and apathy
of the evils of which he had only recently become fully sensible. Living
for himself alone, without cognizance of his membership in one great
universal system, he had needed the sense of churchmanship to make him
act up to his duties as father, neighbour, citizen, and man of property;
and when aroused, he found that the time of his inaction had bound him
about with fetters. A tone of mind had grown up in his family from which
only Sophy had been entirely freed; seeds of ineradicable evil had been
sown, mischiefs had grown by neglect, abuses been established by custom;
and his own personal disadvantages, his mauvaise honte, his
reserved, apparently proud manner, his slowness of speech, dislike to
interruption, and over-vehemence when excited, had so much increased
upon him, as, in spite of his efforts, to be serious hindrances. Kind,
liberal, painstaking, and conscientious as he had become, he was still
looked upon as hard, stern, and tyrannical. His ten years of inertness
had strewn his path with thorns and briars, even beyond his own
household; and when he looked back to his neglect of his son, he felt
that even the worst consequences would be but just retribution.
Once such feelings would have wrapt him in morbid gloom; now he strove
against his disposition to sit inert and hidden, he did his work
manfully, and endeavoured not to let his want of spirits sadden the
household.
Nor was he insensible to the cheerful healthy atmosphere of animation
which had diffused itself there; and the bright discussions of the
trifling interests of the day. Ulick O’More was also a care to him,
which did him a great deal of good.
That young gentleman now lived at his lodgings, but was equally at home
at Willow Lawn, and his knock at the library door, when he wished
to change a book, usually led to some ‘Prometheus’ discussion, and
sometimes to a walk, if Mr. Kendal thought him looking pale; or to
dining and to spending the evening.
His scrapes were peculiar. He had thoroughly mastered his work, and his
active mind wanted farther scope, so that he threw himself with avidity
into deeper studies, and once fell into horrible disgrace for being
detected with a little Plato on his desk. Mr. Goldsmith nearly gave
him up in despair, and pronounced that he would never make a man of
business. He made matters worse by replying that this was the best
chance of his not being a man of speculation. If he were allowed
to think of nothing but money, he should speculate for the sake of
something to do!
Before Mr. Goldsmith had half recovered the shock, Mr. Dusautoy and Mr.
Hope laid violent hands upon young O’More for the evening school twice a
week, which almost equally discomposed his aunt. She had never got over
the first blow of Mr. Dusautoy’s innovations, and felt as if her nephew
had gone over to the enemy. She was doubly ungracious at the Sunday
dinner, and venomously critical of the choir’s chanting, Mr. Hope’s
voice, and the Vicar’s sermons.
The worst scrape came in March. The Willow Lawn ladies were in the lower
end of the garden, which, towards the river, was separated from the lane
that continued Tibb’s Alley, by a low wall surmounted by spikes, and
with a disused wicket, always locked, and nearly concealed by a growth
of laurels; when out brake a horrible hullabaloo in that region of evil
report, the shouts and yells coming nearer, and becoming so distinct
that they were about to retreat, when suddenly a dark figure leapt
over the gate, and into the garden, amid a storm of outcries. As he
disappeared among the laurels, Albinia caught up Maurice, Lucy screamed
and prepared to fly, and Sophy started forward, exclaiming, ‘It is
Ulick, mamma; his face is bleeding!’ But as he emerged, she retreated,
for she had a nervous terror of the canine race, and in his hand, at
arm’s length he held by the neck a yellow dog, a black pot dangling from
its tail.
‘Take care,’ he shouted, as Albinia set down Maurice, and was running up
to him; ‘he may be mad.’
Maurice was caught up again, Lucy shrieked, and Sophy, tottering against
an apple-tree, faintly said, ‘He has bitten you!’
‘No, not he; it was only a stone,’ said Ulick, as best he might, with a
fast bleeding upper lip. ‘They were hunting the poor beast to death--I
believe he’s no more mad than I am--only with the fright--but best make
sure.’
‘Fetch some milk, Lucy,’ said Albinia. ‘Take Maurice with you. No, don’t
take the poor thing down to the river, he’ll only think you are going to
drown him. Go, Maurice dear.’
Maurice safe, Albinia was able to find ready expedients after Sir Fowell
Buxton’s celebrated example. She brought Ulick the gardener’s thick
gauntlets from the tool-house, and supplied him with her knife, with
which he set the poor creature free from the instrument of torture, and
then let him loose, with a pan of milk before him, in the old-fashioned
summer-house, through the window of which he could observe his motions,
and if he looked dangerous, shoot him.
Nothing could look less dangerous; the poor creature sank down on the
floor and moaned, licked its hind leg, and then dragged itself as
if famished to the milk, lapped a little eagerly, but lay down again
whining, as if in pain. Ulick and Albinia called to it, and it looked
up and tried to wag its tail, whining appealingly. ‘My poor brute!’ he
cried, ‘they’ve treated you worse than a heathen. That’s all--let me see
what I can do for you.’
‘Yes, but yourself, Ulick,’ said Albinia, as in his haste he took down
his handkerchief from his mouth; ‘I do believe your lip is cut through!
You had better attend to that first.’
‘No, no, thank you,’ said Ulick, eagerly, ‘they’ve broken the poor
wretch’s leg!’ and he was the next moment sitting on the summer-house
floor, lifting up the animal tenderly, regardless of her expostulation
that the injured, frightened creature might not know its friends. But
she did it injustice; it wagged its stumpy tail, and licked his fingers.
She offered to fetch rag for his surgery, and he farther begged for some
slight bits of wood to serve as splints, he and his brothers had been
dog-doctors before. As she hurried into the house, Sophy, who had sunk
on a sofa in the drawing-room, looking deadly pale, called out, ‘Is he
bitten?’
‘No, no,’ cried Albinia, hurrying on, ‘the dog is all safe. It has only
got a broken leg.’
Maurice, with whom Lucy had all this time been fighting, came out with
her to see the rest of the adventure; and thought it very cruel that he
was not permitted to touch the patient, which bore the operation with
affecting fortitude and gratitude, and was then consigned to a basket
lined with hay, and left in the summer-house, Mr. Kendal being known to
have an almost eastern repugnance to dogs.
Then Ulick had leisure to be conducted to the morning-room, and
be rendered a less ghastly spectacle, by some very uncomfortable
sticking-plaster moustaches, which hardly permitted him to narrate his
battle distinctly. He thought the boys, even of Tibb’s Alley, would
hardly have ventured any violence after he had interfered, but for some
young men who aught to have known better; he fancied he had seen young
Tritton of Robbles Leigh, and he was sure of an insolent groom whom Mr.
Cavendish Dusautoy, to the great vexation of his uncle, had recently
sent down with a horse to the King’s Head. They had stimulated the boys
to a shout of Paddy and a shower of stones, and Ulick expected credit
for great discretion, in having fled instead of fought. ‘Ah! if Brian
and Connel had but been there, wouldn’t we have put them to the rout?’
Nothing would then serve him but going back to Tibb’s Alley to trace the
dog’s history, and meantime Lucy, from the end of the passage, beckoned
to Albinia, and whispered mysteriously that ‘Sophy would not have any
one know it for the world--but,’ said Lucy, ‘I found her absolutely
fainting away on the sofa, only she would not let me call you, and
ordered that no one should know anything about it. But, mamma, there was
a red-hot knitting-needle sticking out of the fire, and I am quite sure
that she meant if Ulick was bitten, to burn out the place.’
Albinia believed Sophy capable of both the resolution and its
consequence; but she agreed with Lucy that no notice should be taken,
and would not seem aware that Sophy was much paler than usual.
The dog, as well as Ulick could make out, was a waif or stray, belonging
to a gipsy deported that morning by the police, and on whom its master’s
sins had been visited. So without scruple he carried the basket home to
his lodgings, and on the way, had the misfortune to encounter his uncle,
while shirtfront, coat, and waistcoat were fresh from the muddy and
bloody fray, and his visage in the height of disfigurement.
Mr. Goldsmith looked on the whole affair as an insult to every Goldsmith
of past ages! A mere street row! He ordered Mr. More to his lodgings,
and said he should hear from him to-morrow. Ulick came down to Willow
Lawn in the dark, almost considering himself as dismissed, not knowing
whether to be glad or sorry; and wanting to consult Mr. Kendal whether
it would be possible to work his way at college as Mr. Hope had done, or
even wondering whether he might venture to beg for a recommendation to
‘Kendal and Kendal.’
Mr. Kendal was so strongly affected, that he took up his hat and went
straight to Mr. Goldsmith, ‘to put the matter before him in a true
light.’
True light or false, it was intolerable in the banker’s eyes, and it
took a great deal of eloquence to persuade him that his nephew was worth
a second trial. Fighting in Tibb’s Alley over a gipsy’s dog, and coming
back looking like a ruffian! Mr. Goldsmith wished him no harm, but it
would be a disgrace to the concern to keep him on, and Miss Goldsmith,
whom Mr. Kendal heartily wished to gag, chimed in with her old
predictions of the consequences of her poor sister’s foolish marriage.
The final argument, was Mr. Kendal’s declaration of the testimonials
with which he would at once send him out to Calcutta, to take the
situation once offered to his own son. No sooner did Mr. Goldsmith hear
that his nephew had an alternative, than he promised to be lenient, and
finally dispatched a letter to U. More, Esquire, with a very serious
rebuke, but a promise that his conduct should be overlooked, provided
the scandal were not repeated, and he should not present himself at the
bank till his face should be fit to be seen.
Mr. Kendal mounted him the next morning on Gilbert’s horse, and sent him
to Fairmead. The dog was left in charge of Bridget, who treated it with
abundant kindness, but failed to obtain the exclusive affection which
the poor thing lavished upon its rescuer. By the time Ulick came home,
it had arrived at limping upon three legs, and was bent on following
him wherever he went. Disreputable and heinously ugly it was, of tawny
currish yellow (whence it was known as the Orange-man), with a bull-dog
countenance; and the legs that did not limp were bandy. Albinia called
it the Tripod, but somehow it settled into the title of Hyder Ali, to
which it was said to ‘answer’ the most readily, though it would in fact
answer anything from Ulick, and nothing from any one else..
Ever at his heels, the ‘brazen Tripod’ contrived to establish an
entrance at Willow Lawn; scratched till Mr. Kendal would interrupt a
‘Prometheus talk’ to let him in at the library door; and gradually made
it a matter of course to come into the drawing-room, and repose upon
Sophy’s flounces.
This was by way of compensation for his misadventures elsewhere. He was
always bringing Ulick into trouble; shut or tie him up as he might, he
was sure to reappear when least wanted. He had been at church, he had
been in Miss Goldsmith’s drawing-room, he had been found times without
number curled up under Ulick’s desk. Mr. Goldsmith growled hints about
hanging him, and old Mr. Johns, who really was fond of his bright young
fellow clerk, gave grave counsel; but Ulick only loved his protege the
better, and after having exhausted an Irish vocabulary of expostulation,
succeeded in prevailing on him to come no farther than the street;
except on very wet days, when he would sometimes be found on the mat in
the entry, looking deplorably beseeching, and bringing on his master an
irate, ‘Here’s that dog again!’
‘Would that no one fell into worse scrapes,’ sighed Mr. Dusautoy, when
he heard of Ulick’s disasters with Hyder Ali, and it was a sigh that the
house of Kendal re-echoed.
Nobody could be surprised when, towards the long vacation, tidings came
to Bayford, that after long forbearance on the part of the authorities,
the insubordination and riotous conduct of the two young men could be
endured no longer. It appeared that young Dusautoy, with his weak head
and obstinate will, had never attempted to bend to rules, but had taken
every reproof as an insult and defiance. Young men had not been wanting
who were ready to take advantage of his lavish expenditure, and to
excite his disdain for authorities. They had promoted the only wit he
did understand, broad practical jokes and mischief; and had led him
into the riot and gambling to which he was not naturally prone. Gilbert
Kendal, with more sense and principle, had been led on by the contagion
around him, and at last an outrageous wine party had brought matters
to a crisis. The most guilty were the most cunning, and the only two
to whom the affair could actually be brought home, were Dusautoy
and Kendal. The sentence was rustication, and the tutor wrote to Mr.
Dusautoy, as the least immediately affected, to ask him to convey the
intelligence to Mr. Kendal.
The vicar was not a man to shrink from any task, however painful, but he
felt it the more deeply, as, in spite of his partiality, he was forced
to look on his own favourite Algernon as the misleader of Gilbert; and
when he overtook the sisters on his melancholy way down the hill, he
consulted them how their father would bear it.
‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said Lucy; ‘he’ll be terribly angry. I should not
wonder if he sent Gilbert straight off to India; should you, Sophy?’
‘I hope he will do nothing in haste,’ exclaimed Mr. Dusautoy. ‘I do
believe if those two lads were but separated, or even out of such
company, they would both do very well.’
‘Yes,’ exclaimed Lucy; ‘and, after all, they are such absurd
regulations, treating men like schoolboys, wanting them to keep such
regular troublesome hours. Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy told me that there was
no enduring the having everything enforced.’
‘If things had been enforced on poor Algernon earlier, this might never
have been,’ sighed his uncle.
‘I’m sure I don’t see why papa should mind it so much,’ continued Lucy.
‘Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy told me his friend Lord Reginald Raymond had
been rusticated twice, and expelled at last.’
‘What do you think of it, Sophy?’ asked the vicar, anxiously.
‘I don’t feel as if any of us could ever look up again,’ she answered
very low.
‘Why, no; not that exactly. It is not quite the right way to take
these things, Sophy,’ said Mr. Dusautoy. ‘Boys may be very foolish and
wrong-headed, without disgracing their family.’
Sophy did not answer--it was all too fresh and sore, and she did not
find much consolation in the number of youths whom Lucy reckoned up as
having incurred the like penalty. When they entered the house, and Mr.
Dusautoy knocked at the library door, she followed Lucy into the garden,
without knowing where she was going, and threw herself down upon the
grass, miserable at the pain which was being inflicted upon her father,
and with a hardened resentful feeling, between contempt and anger,
against the brother, who, for very weakness, could so dishonour and
grieve him. She clenched her hand in the intensity of her passionate
thoughts and impulses, and sat like a statue, while Lucy, from time to
time, between the tying up of flowers and watering of annuals, came
up with inconsistent exhortations not to be so unhappy--for it was not
expulsion--it was sure to be unjust--nobody would think the worse of
them because young men were foolish--all men of spirit did get into
scrapes--
It was lucky for Lucy that all this passed by Sophy’s ear as unheeded
as the babbling of the brook. She did not move, till roused by Ulick
O’More, coming up from the bridge, telling that he had met some Irish
haymakers in the meadows, and saying he wanted to beg a frock for one of
their children.
‘I think I can find you one,’ said Lucy, ‘if you will wait a minute; but
don’t go in, Mr. Dusautoy is there.’
‘Is anything the matter?’ he exclaimed.
‘Every one must soon know,’ said Lucy; ‘it is of no use to keep it back,
Sophy. Only my brother and Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy have got into a scrape
about a wine party, and are going to be rusticated. But wait, I’ll fetch
the frock.’
Sophy had almost run away while her sister spoke, but the kind look of
consternation and pity on Ulick’s face deterred her, he in soliloquy
repeated, as if confounded by the greatness of the misfortune, ‘Poor
Gilbert!’
‘Poor Gilbert!’ burst from Sophy in irritation at misplaced sympathy; ‘I
thought it would be papa and mamma you cared for!’
‘With reason,’ returned Ulick, ‘but I was thinking how it must break his
heart to have pained such as they.’
‘I wish he would feel it thus,’ exclaimed Sophy; ‘but he never will!’
‘Oh! banish that notion, Sophy,’ cried Ulick, recoiling at the
indignation in her dark eyes, ‘next to grieving my mother, I declare
nothing could crush me like meeting a look such as that from a sister of
mine.’
‘How can I help it?’ she said, reserve breaking down in her vehemence,
‘when I think how much papa has suffered--how much Gilbert has to make
up to him--how mamma took him for her own--how they have borne with him,
and set their happiness on him, and yielded to his fancies, only for him
to disappoint them so cruelly, and just because he can’t say No! I hope
he wont come home; I shall never know how to speak to him!’
‘But all that makes it so much the worse for him,’ said Ulick, in a tone
of amazement.
‘Yes, you can’t understand,’ she answered; ‘if he had had one spark of
feeling like you, he would rather have died than have gone on as he has
done.’
‘Surely many a man may be overtaken in a fault, and never be wrong at
heart,’ said Ulick. ‘There’s many a worse sin than what the world sets a
blot upon, and I believe that is just why homes were made.’
Lucy came back with the frock, and Ulick, thanking her, sped away; while
Sophy slowly went upstairs and hid herself on her couch. For a woman to
find a man thinking her over-hard and severe, is sure either to harden
or to soften her very decidedly, and it was a hard struggle which
would be the effect. There was an inclination at first to attribute his
surprise to the lax notions and foolish fondness of his home, where no
doubt far worse disorders than Gilbert’s were treated as mere matters
of course. But such strong pity for the offender did not seem to accord
with this; and the more she thought, the more sure she became that it
was the fresh charity and sweetness of an innocent spirit, ‘believing
all things,’ and separating the fault from the offender. His words
had fallen on her ear in a sense beyond what he meant. Pride and
uncharitable resentment might be worse sins than mere weakness and
excess. She thought of the elder son in the parable, who, unknowing
of his brother’s temptation and sorrow, closed his heart against his
return; and if her tears would have come, she would have wept that
she could not bring herself to look on Gilbert otherwise than as the
troubler of her father’s peace.
When her mother at last came upstairs, she only ventured to ask gently,
‘How does papa bear it?’
‘It did not come without preparation,’ was the answer; ‘and at first we
were occupied with comforting Mr. Dusautoy, who takes to himself all the
shame his nephew will not feel, for having drawn poor Gilbert into such
a set.’
‘And papa?’ still asked Sophy.
‘He is very quiet, and it is not easy to tell. I believe it was a great
mistake, though not of his making, to send Gilbert to Oxford at all, and
I doubt whether he will ever go back again.
‘Oh, mamma, not conquer this, and live it down!’ cried Sophy; but then
changing, she sighed and said, ‘If he would--’
‘Yes, a great deal depends upon how he may take this, and what becomes
of Algernon Dusautoy; though I suppose there is no lack of other
tempters. Your papa has even spoken of India again; he still thinks he
would be more guarded there, but all depends on the spirit in which we
find him. One thing I hope, that I shall leave it all to his father’s
judgment, and not say one word.’
The next post brought a penitent letter from Gilbert, submitting
completely to his father; only begging that he might not see any one at
home until he should have redeemed his character, and promising to work
very hard and deny himself all relaxation if he might only go to a tutor
at a distance.
This did not at all accord with Mr. Kendal’s views. He had an unavowed
distrust of Gilbert’s letters, he did not fancy a tutor thus selected,
and believed the boy to be physically incapable of the proposed amount
of study. So he wrote a very grave but merciful summons to Willow Lawn.
Albinia went to meet the delinquent at Hadminster, and was struck by the
different deportment of the two youths. Algernon Dusautoy, whose servant
had met him, sauntered up to her as if nothing had happened, carelessly
hoped all were well at Bayford, and, in spite of her exceeding coldness,
talked on with perfect ease upon the chances of a war with Russia, and
had given her three or four maxims, before Gilbert came up with the
luggage van, with a bag in his hand, and a hurried bewildered manner,
unable to meet her eye. He handed her into the carriage, seated himself
beside her, and drove off without one unnecessary word, while Algernon,
mounting his horse, waved them a disengaged farewell, and cantered
on. Albinia heard a heavy sigh, and saw her companion very wan and
sorrowful, dejection in every feature, in the whole stoop of his figure,
and in the nervous twitch of his hands. The contrast gave an additional
impulse to her love and pity, and the first words she said were, ‘Your
father is quite ready to forgive.’
‘I knew he would be so,’ he answered, hardly able to command his voice;
‘I knew you would all be a great deal too kind to me, and that is the
worst of all.’
‘No, Gilbert, not if it gives you resolution to resist the next time.’
He groaned; and it was not long before she drew from him a sincere
avowal of his follies and repentance. He had been led on by assurances
that ‘every one’ did the like, by fear of betraying his own timidity, by
absurd dread of being disdained as slow; all this working on his natural
indolence and love of excitement, had combined to involve him in habits
which had brought on him this disgrace. It was a hopeful sign that he
admitted its justice, and accused no one of partiality; the reprimand
had told upon him, and he was too completely struck down even to attempt
to justify himself; exceedingly afraid of his father, and only longing
to hide himself. Such was his utter despair, that Albinia had no
scruples in encouraging him, and assuring him with all her heart, that
if taken rightly, the shock that brought him to his senses, might be the
blessing of his life. He did not take comfort readily, though soothed by
her kindness; he could not get over his excessive dread of his father,
and each attempt at reassurance fell short. At last it came out that the
very core of his misery was this, that he had found himself for part
of the journey, in the same train with Miss Durant and two or three
children. He could not tell her where he was going nor why, and he had
leant back in the carriage, and watched her on the platform by stealth,
as she moved about, ‘lovelier and more graceful than ever!’ but how
could he present himself to her in his disgrace and misery? ‘Oh, Mrs.
Kendal, I forgive my father, but my life was blighted when I was cut off
from her!’
‘No, Gilbert, you are wrong. There is no blighting in a worthy,
disinterested attachment. To be able to love and respect such a woman
is a good substantial quality in you, and ought to make you a higher and
better man.’
Gilbert turned round a face of extreme amazement. ‘I thought,’ he said,
‘I thought you--’ and went no farther.
‘I respect your feeling for her more than when it was two years
younger,’ she said; ‘I should respect it doubly if instead of making you
ashamed, it had saved you from the need of shame.’
‘Do you give me any hope?’ cried Gilbert, his face gleaming into sudden
eager brightness.
‘Things have not become more suitable,’ said Albinia; and his look
lapsed again into despondency; but she added, ‘Each step towards real
manhood, force of character, and steadiness, would give you weight which
might make your choice worth your father’s consideration, and you worth
that of Genevieve.’
‘Oh! would you but have told me so before!’
‘It was evident to your own senses,’ said Albinia; and she thought of
the suggestion that Sophy had made.
‘Too late! too late!’ sighed Gilbert.
‘No, never too late! You have had a warning; you are very young, and it
cannot be too late for winning a character, and redeeming the time!’
‘And you tell me I may love her!’ repeated Gilbert, so intoxicated with
the words, that she became afraid of them.
‘I do not tell you that you may importune her, or disobey your father.
I only tell you that to look up and work and deny yourself, in honour
of one so truly noble, is one of the best and most saving of secondary
motives. I shall honour you, Gilbert, if you do so use it as to raise
and support you, though of course I cannot promise that she can be
earned by it, and even that motive will not do alone, however powerful
you may think it.’
Neither of them said more, but Gilbert sighed heavily several times, and
would willingly have checked their homeward speed. He grew pale as they
entered the town, and groaned as the gates swung back, and they
rattled over the wooden bridge. It was about four o’clock, and he said,
hurriedly, as with a sort of hope, ‘I suppose they are all out.’
He was answered by a whoop of ecstasy, and before he was well out of the
carriage, he was seized by the joyous Maurice, shouting that he had been
for a ride with papa, without a leading rein. Happy age for both, too
young to know more than that the beloved playfellow was at home again!
Little Albinia studied her brother till the small memory came back, and
she made her pretty signs for the well-remembered dancing in his arms.
From such greetings, Gilbert’s wounded spirit could not shrink, much as
he dreaded all others; and, carrying the baby and preceded by Maurice,
while he again muttered that of course no one was at home, he went
upstairs.
Albinia meantime tapped at the library door. She knew Mr. Kendal to be
there, yearning to forgive, but thinking it right to have his pardon
sought; and she went in to tell him of his son’s keen remorse, and
deadly fear. Displeased and mournful, Mr. Kendal sighed. ‘He has little
to fear from me, would he but believe so! He ought to have come to me,
but--’
That ‘but’ meant repentance for over-sternness in times past.
‘Let me send him to you.’
‘I will come,’ said Mr. Kendal, willing to spare his son the terror of
presenting himself.
There was a pretty sight in the morning-room. Gilbert was on the floor
with the two children, Maurice intent on showing how nearly little
Albinia could run alone, and between ordering and coaxing, drawing her
gently on; her beautiful brown eyes opened very seriously to the great
undertaking, and her round soft hands, with a mixture of confidence
and timidity, trusted within the sturdy ones of her small elder, while
Gilbert knelt on one knee, and stretched out a protecting arm, really to
grasp the little one, if the more childish brother should fail her, and
his countenance, lighted up with interest and affection, was far more
prepossessing than when so lately it had been, full of cowering, almost
abject apprehension.
Was it a sort of instinctive feeling that the little sister would be his
best shelter, that made him gather the child into his arms, and hold her
before his deeply blushing face as he rose from the floor? She merrily
called out, ‘Papa!’ Maurice loudly began to recount her exploits, and
thus passed the salutation, at the end of which Gilbert found that his
father was taking the little one from him, and giving her to her mother,
who carried her away, calling Maurice with her.
‘Have you nothing to say to me?’ said Mr. Kendal, after waiting for some
moments; but as Gilbert only looked up to him with a piteous, scared,
uncertain glance, be added; ‘You need not fear me; I believe you have
erred more from weakness than from evil inclinations, and I trust in the
sincerity of your repentance.’
These kind words softened Gilbert; he assured his father of his thanks
for his kindness, no one could grieve more deeply, or be more anxious to
atone in any possible manner for what he had unwittingly done.
‘I believe you, Gilbert,’ said his father; ‘but you well know that
the only way of atoning for the past, as well as of avoiding such
wretchedness and disgrace for the future, is to show greater firmness.’
‘I know it is,’ said Gilbert, sorrowfully.
‘I cannot look into your heart,’ added Mr. Kendal. ‘I can only hope and
believe that your grief for the sin is as deep, or deeper, than that for
the public stigma, for which comparatively, I care little.’
Gilbert exclaimed that so indeed it was, and this was no more than the
truth. Out of sight of temptation, and in that pure atmosphere, the loud
revel and coarse witticisms that had led him on, were only loathsome and
disgusting, and made him miserable in the recollection.
‘I am ready to submit to anything,’ he added, fervently. ‘As long as you
forgive me, I am ready to bear anything.’
‘I forgive you from my heart,’ said Mr. Kendal, warmly. ‘I only wish to
consider what may be most expedient for you. I should scarcely like to
send you back to Oxford to retrieve your character, unless I were sure
that you would be more resolute in resisting temptation. No, do not
reply; your actions during this time of penance will be a far more
satisfactory answer than any promises. I had thought of again applying
to your cousin John, to take you into his bank, though you could not now
go on such terms as you might have done when there was no error in the
background, and I still sometimes question whether it be not the safer
method.’
‘Whatever you please,’ said Gilbert; ‘I deserve it all.’
‘Nay, do not look upon my decision, whatever it may be, as punishment,
but only as springing from my desire for your real welfare. I will
write to your cousin and ask whether he still has a vacancy, but without
absolutely proposing you to him, and we will look on the coming months
as a period of probation, during which we may judge what may be the
wisest course. I will only ask one other question, Gilbert, and you
need not be afraid to answer me fully and freely. Have you any debts at
Oxford?’
‘A few,’ stammered Gilbert, with a great effort.
‘Can you tell me to whom, and the amount?’
He tried to recollect as well as he could, while completely frightened
and confused by the gravity with which his father was jotting them down
in his pocket-book.
‘Well, Gilbert,’ he concluded, ‘you have dealt candidly with me, and you
shall never have cause to regret having done so. And now we will only
feel that you are at home, and dwell no longer on the cause that has
brought you. Come out, and see what we have been doing in the meadow.’
Gilbert seemed more overthrown and broken down by kindness than by
reproof. He hardly exerted himself even to play with Maurice, or to
amuse his grandmother; and though his sisters treated him as usual, he
never once lifted up his eyes to meet Sophy’s glance, and scarcely used
his voice.
Nothing could be more disarming than such genuine sorrow; and Sophy,
pardoning him with all her heart, and mourning for her past want of
charity, watched him, longing to do something for his comfort, and to
evince her tenderness; but only succeeded in encumbering every petty
service or word of intercourse with a weight of sad consciousness.