Beaufort behaved very well at this crisis of domestic history. He shook
off his usual languor and became at once energetic and active. What he
said to Tom remains undisclosed, but he ‘spoke to’ the boy with great
force, and even eloquence, representing to him the ruin entailed by
certain bad habits, which--more than other vices, probably worse in
themselves--destroy a man’s reputation and degrade him among his
fellows. Though he was himself a man over-refined in his ways, he was
clever enough to seize the only motives which were likely to influence
the ruder nature of his stepson. And then he went to poor Carry, who in
this home of evil memories sat like a ghost surrounded by the
recollections of the past, and seeing for ever before her eyes the
disordered looks and excited eyes of her boy. He was not, alas! the son
of her dreams, the child whom every mother hopes for, who is to restore
the ideal of what a man should be. Many disappointments had already
taught Lady Car that her son had little of the ideal in him, and
nothing, or next to nothing, of herself; but still he was her son: and
to think of him as the rude and violent debauchee of the country-side
seemed more than she could bear. Beaufort came in upon her miserable
seclusion like a fresh breeze of comfort and hope. This was so far from
his usual aspect that the effect was doubled. Tender he always was, but
to-day he was cheerful, hopeful, full of confidence and conscious power.
‘There must be no more of this,’ he cried. ‘Come, Carry, have a little
courage. Because the boy has been a fool once--or even twice--that is
not to say that there is anything tragical in it, or that he is
abandoned to bad habits. It is probably scarcely his fault at all--a
combination of circumstances. Nobody’s fault, indeed. Some silly man,
forgetting he was a boy, persuading him out of supposed hospitality to
swallow something his young head could not stand. How was the boy in his
innocence to know that he could not stand it? It is a mere accident. My
love, you good women are often terribly unjust and sweeping in your
judgments. You must not from one little foolish misdemeanour judge Tom.’
‘Oh, Edward!’ she cried, ‘judge him! my own boy! All that I feel is that
I would rather have died than seen that look, that dreadful look, in my
child’s face.’
‘Nonsense, Carry. That is what I call judging him. You should never have
seen it, but as for rather dying---- Would Tom be the better for it if
he lost his mother, the best influence a boy can have----?’
She shook her head: but how to tell her husband of the spectre who had
risen before her in the house that was his, claiming the son who was
his, his heir and not Carry’s, she did not know. Influence! she had been
helpless by the side of the father, and in the depths of that dreadful
experience Carry foresaw that the son, so like him, so moulded upon that
man whom she had feared to the bottom of her heart, and alas!
unwillingly hated, had now escaped her too. There are moments which are
prophetic, and in which the feeblest vision sees clear. He had escaped
her influence, if, indeed, he had ever acknowledged any influence of
hers. As a child he had been obliged to obey her, and even as a youth
the influence of the household--that decent, tranquil, graceful
household at Easton--which henceforward Tom would compare so
contemptuously with his own ‘place,’ and the wealth which was soon to be
his--had kept him in a fashion of submission. But Tom had always looked
at his mother with eyes in which defiance lurked: there had never been
in them anything of that glamour with which some children regard their
mother, finding in her their first ideal. It had always been a weariness
to Tom to be confined to the restraint of her society. When they were
children even, he and his sister had schemed together to escape from
it. She was dimly aware that even Janet---- These things are hard for a
mother to realise, but there are moments when they come upon her with
all the certainty of fate. Her influence! She could have laughed or
wept. As it was with the father, so would it be with the son. For that
moment at least poor Carry’s perceptions were clear.
But what could she say? She said nothing; not even to Beaufort could she
disclose that miserable insight which had come to her. Your own
children, how can you blame them to another, even if that other is your
husband? how say that, though so near in blood and every tie, they are
alien in soul? how disclose that sad intuition? Carry never said a word.
She shook her head; not even perhaps to their own father could she have
revealed that discovery. A mother’s part is to excuse, to pardon, to
bear with everything, even to pretend that she is deceived and blinded
by the partiality of love, never to disclose the profound and
unutterable discouragement with which she has recognised the truth. She
shook her head at Beaufort’s arguments, leaving him to believe that it
was only a woman’s natural severity of judgment against the sins with
which she had no sympathy. And by-and-by she allowed herself to be
comforted. He thought that he had brought her back to good sense and the
moderation of a less exacting standard, and had convinced her that a
boyish escapade, however blamable, was not of the importance she
imagined. He thought he had persuaded her not to be hard upon Tom, not
to reproach him, to pass it over as a thing which might be trusted to
his good sense not to occur again. Carry did not enter into any
explanations. She had by this time come to understand well enough that
she must not expect anyone to divine what was in her heart.
Meanwhile Janet, who was vaguely informed on the matter, and knew that
Tom was in disgrace, though not very clearly why, threw herself into his
defence with all the fervour that was in her nature. She went and sat
by him while he lingered over a late breakfast with all the ruefulness
of headache. ‘Oh, Tom, what have you done?’ she said. ‘Oh, why didn’t
you come in time for dinner? Oh, where were you all the afternoon? We
were looking for you everywhere, Jock and I.’ Jock was an Erskine
cousin, the eldest of the tribe.
‘What does it matter to you where I was?’ said the sullen boy.
‘Tom! everything about you matters to me,’ said Janet, ‘and for one
thing we couldn’t make up our game.’
‘Oh, that humbugging game. Do you think I’m a baby or a girl? I hate
your tennis. It isn’t a game for a man.’
‘Quantities and quantities of gentlemen play. Beau plays. Why, the
officers play,’ cried Janet, feeling that nothing more was to be said.
Tom could not refuse to acknowledge such authority. ‘Well, then, it
isn’t a game for me, playing with girls and children. A gallop across
country, that’s what I like, and to see all father’s old friends, and
to hear what they thought of him. By Jove, Janet, father was a man! not
one to lounge about in a drawing-room like old Beau;’ here the boy’s
heart misgave him a little. ‘Beau’s kind enough,’ he said; ‘he doesn’t
look at a fellow as if--as if you had murdered somebody. But if father
had lived----’
‘I wonder----’ Janet said, but she did not go any further. Her light
eyes, wondering under her black brows, were round with a question which
something prevented her from putting. The possibility of her father
having lived confused all her thoughts. She had an instinctive sense of
the difficulties conveyed in that suggestion. She changed the subject by
saying unadvisedly, ‘How bad you look, Tom! Were you ill last night?’
He pushed her away with a vigorous arm. ‘Shut up--you!’ he cried.
‘You are always telling me to shut up; but I know you were to have taken
in Miss Ogilvie to dinner--that pretty Miss Ogilvie--and when you did
not come, it put them all out. I heard Hampshire telling Nurse. He said
something about “your boozing Mr. Tom,” and Nurse fired up. But
afterwards she cried--and mother has been crying this morning; and then
you look so bad. Do tell me if you were ill, Tom.’
He did not reply for some time, and then he burst out: ‘Mother’s such a
bore with her crying! Does she think I’m to be a baby all my life?’
‘Do you know,’ said Janet, ‘you’re very much like that portrait of
father in the hall--that great big one with the horse? Mother looks
frightened when she passes it. He does look a little fierce, as if he
would have scolded dreadfully,’ the girl added, with the air of making
an admission.
‘I would rather have been scolded by him,’ cried the boy--‘No, he
wouldn’t have scolded, he would have known better. A man like that
understands fellows. Jan, we’re rather badly off, you and me, with only
a woman to look after us, and _that_ Beau.’
‘Do you call mother a woman? You might be more civil,’ said Janet: but
she did not contradict this assertion, which was not made for the first
time. She, too, had always thought that the ideal father, the vague
impersonation of kindness and understanding, who would never mock like
Beau, nor look too grave like mother, was something to sigh for, in
whose guard all would have gone well. But the portrait in the hall had
daunted Janet. She had felt that those black brows could frown and those
staring eyes burn beyond anything that her softly nurtured childhood had
known. She would not betray herself by a word or even a thought if she
could help it, but it could not be denied that her heart sank. ‘I wish,’
she said, quickly, ‘you’d leave off breakfasting, Tom, and come out with
me for a walk. What is the good of pretending? One can see you don’t
want anything to eat.’
‘Walk!’ said Tom. ‘You can get that little sap to walk with you. I’ve
got to meet a fellow--Blackmore’s his name--away on the other side of
the moor at twelve. Just ring the bell, Jan. In five minutes I must
have Bess at the door.’
‘It’s twelve o’clock now. Don’t go to-day. Besides, mother----’
‘What has mother to do with it?’ cried Tom, starting up. ‘I’m going, if
it was only to spite mother, and you can tell her so. Do you think I’m
tied to mother’s apron-string? Oh, is it you, Beau? I--am going out for
a ride.’
‘So am I,’ said Beaufort, entering. ‘I thought it likely that would be
your intention, so I ordered your horse when I ordered mine. Where did
you say you were going? I caught somebody’s name as I came in.’
‘He said he was--a friend of my father’s,’ said Tom, sullenly.
‘Ah! it is easy for a man to say he is the friend of another who cannot
contradict him. Anyhow, we can ride together so far. What’s the matter?
Aren’t you ready?’ Beaufort said.
‘He has not finished his breakfast,’ said Janet, springing to Tom’s
defence.
‘Oh, nonsense! at twelve o’clock!’ said Beaufort, with a laugh. And
presently, notwithstanding the youth’s reluctance, he was carried off in
triumph. Janet, much marvelling, followed them to the door to see them
mount. She stood upon the steps, following their movements with her
eyes, dimly comprehending, divining, with her feminine instincts half
awakened. Tom’s sullen, reluctant look was more than ever like the
portrait, which Janet paused once more to look at as she went back
through the hall. She stood looking for a long time at the heavy,
lowering face. It was a fine portrait, which Torrance had boasted of in
his time, the money it had cost filling him with ill-concealed pride. It
was the first thing which had shaken Janet in her devotion to the
imaginary father who had been the god of her childhood. Tom was not so
big; he was not tall at all, not more than middle height, though broadly
and heavily made. It was very like Tom, and yet there was something in
it which made the girl afraid. As she stood gazing with more and more
uncertainty upon the pictured face, Lady Car came quickly into the
hall--almost running--in evident anxiety and concern. She stopped
suddenly as Janet turned round, casting a half-frightened, shuddering
look from the picture to the girl before it. There was something like an
apology in her nervous pause.
‘I--thought Tom was here,’ she said.
‘He has gone out riding--with Beau.’
‘With Beau?’ Lady Car breathed something that sounded like ‘Thank God!’
‘Is there anything wrong--with Tom?’ said Janet, gazing round upon her
mother with defiance in her eyes.
‘Wrong? I hope not. They say not. Oh, God forbid!’ Lady Car put her
hands together. She was very pale, with a little redness under her eyes.
‘Then, mother, if there’s nothing wrong, why do you look like that?’
‘Like that?’ Lady Car attempted a little laugh. ‘Like what, my dear?’
She added, with a long-drawn breath, ‘It is my foolish anxiety;
everybody says it is foolish. It is _plus forte que moi_.’
‘I wish you would not speak French. Tom,’ said Janet, ‘is well enough,
though he doesn’t look well. He ate no breakfast; and he looked as if he
would like to take my head off. Isn’t Tom--very like father?’ she added,
in a low voice.
They were standing at the foot of the picture, a full-length, which
overbore them as much in reality as imagination, and made the woman and
the girl look like pigmies at his feet. Carry gave a slight shiver in
spite of herself.
‘Yes,’ she said faintly; ‘and, my dear--so are you too.’
Janet met her mother’s look with a stolid steadiness. She saw, half
sorry, half pleased, Lady Car’s eyes turn from the picture to her own
face and back again. She had very little understanding of her mother,
but a great deal of curiosity. She thought to herself that most mothers
were pleased with such a resemblance--so at least Janet had read in
books. She supposed her own mother did not care for it--perhaps
disliked it because she had married again.
‘You never told us anything about father,’ she said, ‘but Nurse does a
great deal. She told me how he--was killed. Was that the horse?’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Car, with a trembling which she could not conceal.
‘Is it because you are sorry that you are so nervous?’ said Janet, with
those dull, light eyes fixed upon her, which were Torrance’s eyes.
‘Janet!’ cried her mother, ‘do not ask me about it.’ She said, in a low,
hurried voice, ‘Is it not enough that it was the most terrible thing
that ever happened? I cannot go back upon it.’
‘But afterwards,’ said the girl, impelled by she knew not what--some
influence of vague exasperation, which was half opposition to her
mother, and half disappointment to find the dead father, the tutelary
divinity of this house to which she had been eager to come, so
different from her expectations--‘afterwards--you married Beau.’
‘Janet!’ Lady Car cried again, but this time the shock brought back her
dignity and self-control. ‘I don’t know what has got possession of you,
my dear, to-day. You forget yourself--and me. You are not the judge of
my actions, nor will I justify myself before you.’ She added, after a
time, ‘Both Tom and you are very like your father. After a while he will
be master here, and you perhaps mistress till he marries. Your
father--might have been living now’ (poor Carry grew pale and shuddered
even while she pointed her moral)--‘if he had not been such a hard
rider, so--so careless, thinking he could go anywhere. Do you wonder
that I am anxious about Tom? You will have to learn to do what you can
to restrain him, to keep him from those wild rides, to keep him----’
Lady Car’s voice faltered, the tears came to her eyes. ‘I believe it is
common,’ she said, ‘that a young man, such as he is growing to be,
should not mind his mother much. Sometimes, people tell me, they mind
their sisters more.’
‘Tom does not mind me a bit,’ said Janet, ‘oh, not a bit--and he will
never marry. He does not like girls.’
‘Perhaps he will change his mind,’ said Carry, with a faint smile. ‘Boys
often do. Will you remember what I have said, dear, if you should ever
be mistress here?’
‘But how can I be mistress? Where will you be? Why should there be any
change?’
‘The house is Tom’s, not mine. And I shall be at my own house at
Easton--if I am living.’
‘Oh,’ said Janet. Carry, though a little roused in her own defence,
almost quailed before the look in the girl’s eyes. ‘You will be happier
then,’ she said, with the air of an assailant hurling a stone at his
victim; ‘for you will be all by yourself--with Beau.’
‘Go upstairs, Janet: I can have no more of this!’
‘I will not,’ she cried; ‘you said it was Tom’s house, not yours. He
would not let me be sent away out of his hall, from father’s picture,
for--anyone--if he were here.’
Carry raised her eyes and saw him standing behind his child. There
seemed a dull smile of triumph in his painted eyes. ‘You thought they
were yours--but they are mine,’ Torrance seemed to say. Both of them!
their father’s in every nerve and fibre--nothing to do with her.