CONFIDENCES.
"I would not speculate if I were you," said Ashton. "What would be the
good? You are very well off as you are. You are making your fortune
steadily, far better than if you did it by a successful _coup_. Yes,
yes, I can understand that a man should desire a little more excitement,
and rebel against the monotony of a quiet life, but not you, Vernon, if
you'll excuse my saying so. You don't go in for any sort of illegitimate
pursuit. You don't play or bet; you have no claim upon you that you want
extraordinary means of supplying----"
"How can you tell all that?" said Edward Vernon. "Do you think life's so
easy a business that you can read it off from the surface, and make sure
that everything is as it seems?"
"I don't say that. Of course, I go upon appearances. I can understand
that perhaps you are tired of it----"
"Tired of it!" He twirled his stick violently in his hand, hitting at
the rusty bramble branches and gorse bushes that bordered the Common as
if they were his enemies. "I suppose one is apt to tire of anything that
lasts and never varies," he cried with a forced laugh. "Yes, I am tired
of it. Quiet life and safe business, and the hope of making a fortune,
as you call it, steadily, in twenty or thirty years----Good life! Twenty
or thirty years! Only think of the number of days in that, one after the
other, one exactly like the other. I begin to feel as if I should
welcome anything to break the monotony--crime itself."
"That means, old fellow," said Ashton, soothingly, "nerves, and nothing
more."
Edward laughed out, a laugh which was not harmonious with the soft
dulness of the autumnal atmosphere. "I have no nerves, nor tastes nor
inclinations, nor any mind of my own," he said. "I do what it is the
right thing to do. Though I am sick of it, I never show that. Nobody
here has the slightest idea that I was ever impatient or irritable or
weary in my life."
Ashton looked at him with some curiosity, but took no further notice.
"Does Miss Vernon," he said, "take any share in the business of the
bank--I mean, in the work, in the regulations?"
"Miss Vernon," said Edward, "takes a share in everything that is going
on around her, it does not matter what. She has been so long used to be
at the head of everything, that she thinks it her natural place; and, as
she is old and a woman, it stands to reason----"
"But she is a very intelligent woman; and she must have a great deal of
experience."
"The experience of a little country town, and of steady business, as you
call it--oh, she has all that. But put your own views before her, or
suggest even the advantages of the circulation of money, quick turning
over, and balance of losses and gains----"
"I can understand that," said Ashton, "You don't appreciate the benefits
of the Conservative element, Vernon. But for you and your steady-going
banks, how could we operate at all? The money must be somewhere. We
can't play with counters only in this game."
"There was no question of counters," said Edward; "we have the money in
our hands. It seems to me that you and I should change places: you to do
the steady business here, and please Aunt Catherine--who has taken a
great fancy to you, you must know--I, to watch the tide, how it comes
and how it goes."
"There might be worse arrangements," Ashton said with a laugh: but he
added quickly, meeting a keen, sudden glance from Edward, "if you could
transfer to me your training, and I mine to you. I am counted rather
bold sometimes, you must know," he added, after a moment, returning that
look. They talked with great apparent readiness and openness, but with a
curious dread of mutual observation going on under the current of their
talk all the time.
"So much the better," said Edward, "so long as you know when to hold
in."
They were going along the side of the Common between the Grange and the
Vernonry. It was Sunday afternoon--a dull day, the sky hanging low, the
green parts of the Common very green, glistening with wetness, the gorse
and brushwood very brown and faded. Nobody was about on this day of
leisure. Even the slow country cart, the farmer's shandry, the
occasional roll of a carriage, was absent from the silent road. There
were no nursemaids and children from Redborough picking their way along
the side path. Captain Morgan, feeling his rheumatism, had retired to
his chimney corner; the young men had it all to themselves. Ashton had
been lunching at the Grange. He was on the eve of going back to town to
business, from which he declared he had been absent far too long. The
object of his visit was not very clear to any one: he had left his
grandparents for years without showing so much interest in them. But,
whatever his motive had been, his expedition had not been without fruit.
He had discovered a new and wealthy vein well worth working, and lit a
fire which, no doubt, would light up still further illuminations, in
some inflammable spirits. No one had received him more warmly than
Edward Vernon, but he was less easy to make out than the others. He was
less simple; his life did not correspond with the betrayals of his
conversation, whereas neither Harry Vernon nor his brother-in-law, had
anything to betray. What was evident, at least, was that Catherine
Vernon smiled upon the acquaintance which had been formed so rapidly
between her nephew and the stranger. She called Edward "your cousin" to
Ashton, then laughed and apologised, explaining that where there were so
many cousins it was difficult to remember that her relation was not
Edward's too. When Ashton replied, "There is connection enough to
justify the name, if it is agreeable to Vernon," there could be no doubt
that it was, at least, agreeable to her. She smiled upon them from her
window as they went out together, waving her hand. And no foolish mother
could have been more unaware than Catherine, that the knowledge that she
was there, watching with tender looks of affection the two figures as
they went along, was to Edward irksome beyond expression. He felt no
charm of love in the look, but substituted suspicion for tenderness, and
believed that she was watching them, keeping them in sight as far as her
eyes could carry, to spy out all they did, and make for herself an
explanation of every gesture. He would not even have twirled his stick
and cut down the brambles but in a momentary fit of forgetfulness. When
they got beyond her range, he breathed more freely, but, even then, was
not without a recollection that she had her opera-glasses at hand, and
might, through them, be watching his demeanour still.
"Let us go this way," he said, turning into the road, which slanted away
on the nearer side of the Vernonry, leading out into the open country
and brown fields.
Ashton hesitated a moment. "I am not sure that I am not expected at
home. It is my last day," he said.
"Home is a kind of irons," said Edward, "hand-cuffs, ankle chains. One
is always like an unhappy cockatoo on a perch. Any little attempt at
flight is always pulled back."
"I don't think that is my experience. My old people are very indulgent;
but then, I am a mere visitor. Home does not mean much to me," said
Ashton. If he had been in the presence of any lady he would have sighed
as he said this--being in absolute freedom with one of his own kind he
smiled, and it was Edward who sighed.
"There is such a thing as having too much of it," he said. "What I
suffer from is want of air. Don't you perceive it? There is no
atmosphere; every breath has been breathed over and over again. We want
ventilation. We welcome every horror with delight in consequence--a
murder--or even a big bankruptcy. I suppose that is why bankruptcies are
so common," he added, as if struck with the idea. "A man requires a
great deal of original impulse before he will go the length of murder.
The other has a milder but similar attraction; you ruin other people,
which shakes them up, and gives a change of air."
"Ill-omened words," said Ashton, laughing, and throwing out the
fore-finger and little finger of his right hand with a play at
superstition. "Ugly at all times, but especially when we are talking of
business and the Stock Exchange."
"Are you aware," said Edward, sinking his voice, "that our predecessor,
before Aunt Catherine, did something of the kind?"
"Who was he?"
"A certain John Vernon. His wife lives yonder, with the rest of Aunt
Catherine's dependents in that red house. He found it too much for him;
but it was a poor sort of a flash in the pan, and hurt nobody but
himself."
"You would like to do more than that," said Ashton, with a laugh.
But in Edward's face there was no jest.
"I should like," he said, "if I broke down, to carry the whole concern
along with me. I should like to pull it down about their ears as Samson
pulled the temple, you know, upon his persecutors."
"Vernon," said Roland, "do you know that you are very rash, opening out
like this to me? Don't you see it is quite possible I might betray you?
I have no right to preach, but surely you can't have any reason to be so
bitter. You seem tremendously well off, I can tell you, to a friendless
fellow like me."
"I am very well off," said Edward, with a smile; "no man was ever
better. I came out of a struggling family where I was to have gone to
the colonies or something. My next brother got that chance, and here I
am. John Vernon, so far as I can hear, was an extravagant fool. I have
not the least sympathy with that. Money's a great power, but as for fine
houses, or fine furniture, or show or dash as they call it----"
"I told you," said Ashton, "you have no vice."
Edward gave him a dark, suspicious look.
"I have even a contempt for it," he said.
"There are plenty of men who have that--a horror even; and yet can't do
without the excitement."
"I prefer your sort of excitement. John Vernon, as I say, was a fool. He
ran away, poor wretch, and Catherine stepped in, and re-made everything,
and covered him with contempt."
"He is the father (is he dead?) of the--young lady--who is such a
favourite with my grandfather?"
"Hester? Oh, you know her, do you? One of Aunt Catherine's pensioners in
the Vernonry, as she calls it."
"It is a little hard upon them to be called dependents; my old people
live there. They have their own little income to live upon. Miss Vernon
gives them their house, I believe, which is very kind, but not enough to
justify the name of pensioners."
"That is our way here," said Edward laughing. "We are very ready to
give, but we like to take the good of it. It is not respectful to call
the place the Vernonry, but we do it. We are delighted to be kind; the
more you will take from us, the better we will like you. We even--rather
like you to be ungrateful. It satisfies our theory."
"Vernon, all that seems to me to be diabolical, you know, I wish you
wouldn't. Miss Hester is a little of your way of thinking, I fear. She
makes it amusing though. There are parties, it appears, where she stands
all night in a corner, or looks at photographs."
"She says that, does she?" said Edward. His smile had not been a
pleasant one, but now it disappeared from his face. "And I suppose she
tells you that I never go near her? I have to look after the old ladies
and take them to supper. I have the honour of standing in the position
of master of the house."
"I don't know that she blames any one," said Ashton indifferently. "It
is more fun than anger. Talk of want of air, Vernon; that poor child
wants air if you please. She is as full of spirit and life as any one I
ever saw. She would like to do something."
"Something! What kind of something? Go on the stage--or what?"
"I have never heard of the stage or anything of the kind. She wants
work."
"Excitement!" Edward said, with an impatient gleam in his eyes.
"She is like you then," said Ashton, trying to laugh, but not with much
cordiality, for he felt himself growing angry in spite of himself.
There was excitement enough now in Edward Vernon's face. It grew dark
with passion and intolerance.
"A woman is altogether different," he said; then subduing himself with a
change in his voice from rage to scorn, "she will soon have it in her
power to change all that. Don't you know she is going to marry Harry
Vernon?--an excellent match for her--money and little brains--whereas
she has much brains and little money, the very thing in marriage," he
concluded, with a harsh laugh.
"Is that so?" said Ashton.
He had been listening quite at his ease, turning his face towards his
companion, and it was a satisfaction to Edward to see that the
stranger's countenance clouded over. He was astonished, and Edward could
not help hoping more than astonished--for being sore and bitter himself
he liked to see another feel the sting.
"That's well," Roland said after a moment, "if she likes it. I should
not have thought--but a week's acquaintance does not show you much of a
character. I am glad to hear it," he said, after a pause, "if she likes
it," which was but a dubious sort of satisfaction after all.
Edward looked at him again with an expression of gratified feeling. He
was glad to have given his new friend a little friendly stab. It pleased
him to see Roland wince. When one is very uneasy one's self, that is
always a little consolation. He looked at him and enjoyed it, then
turned away from the subject which had given him this momentary
pleasure.
"Let us return to our muttons," he said. "Tell me what you think of
these papers? I put them into my pocket to show you. Now that we are
fairly out of sight"--then he turned back to glance along the still damp
road, upon which there was not a single shadow but their own--"and
nobody can spy upon us--for I distrust windows--we may think of business
a little," the young man said.
Ashton looked at him as he took the papers with a glance as suspicious
as his own. They had grown into a sort of sudden intimacy in a single
night. Edward had been exactly in the state of mind to which Roland's
revelation of chances and possibilities was as flame to tinder. To have
his impatient desires and longings made practical was everything to him,
and the prudence and business instinct left in him which made him
hesitate to make the plunge by himself without skilled guidance, endowed
the newcomer with an importance which nothing else could have given him.
He was at home in those regions which were so entrancing and exciting,
yet strange to Edward. These communications had brought them to
something like confidential friendship, and yet they did not know each
other, and in many things were mutually antipathetic, repelling, rather
than attracting each other. This interview, though it was to seal the
connection between them, made their mutual want of sympathy more
apparent. Edward had showed the worst side of himself, and knew it. He
felt even that his self-betrayal had been so great as to put him almost
in his companion's power, while at the same time Ashton had
impertinently interposed in the family affairs (a point upon which
Edward was as susceptible as any one) by what he had permitted himself
to say about Hester. Ashton, on the other hand, whose temper in a way
was generous and easy, regarded the fortunate but ungrateful possessor
of Catherine Vernon's sympathies with an indignant astonishment. To have
been so taken up by such a woman, to have her affection, her confidence,
her unbounded approbation and trust, and to so repay her! It was
incredible, and the fellow was---- Should he fling up all his pretence at
sympathy with this cub, and go off at once, rather abandoning the
possible advantage than consenting to ally himself with such a being?
This was the point at which they stood for a moment; but beside the pull
of mutual interest how were they ever to explain the sudden breach,
should they follow their mutual inclinations and make one? It would be
necessary to say something, and what could be said? and then there lay
before Edward a world of fabulous gain, of sudden wealth, of a hundred
excitements to which Roland seemed to hold the key; and before Roland
the consciousness that not only the advantage of having Edward, but a
whole population of eager country people ready to put their money into
his hands, and give him such power of immediate action as he had
scarcely dreamt of, depended upon his self-restraint. Accordingly the
sole evidence of their absolute distrust and dislike of each other, was
this mutual look, exchanged just before they entered upon the closest
relations of mutual aid.
It was a curious scene for such a beginning. The solitude of the country
road was complete; there was no one to interrupt them. Although they
were in the freedom of the open air, and subject to be overtaken by any
passer-by, yet the Sunday stillness was so intense that they might have
been in the most secret retirement on earth. Had they been seated
together in Edward's room at home, a hundred disturbances were possible.
Servants can never be shut out; if it is only to mend the fire they will
appear in the middle of the most private conference. And Catherine
herself, all unconscious that her presence was disagreeable, might have
come to the door to summon them, or perhaps even to bring them, with her
own kind hands, the cups of tea which in his heart Edward loathed as one
of the signs of his slavery. They were the drink of bondage--those poor
cups that never inebriate. He hated even the fragrance of them--the
little steams ascending. Thank Heaven no one could bring him tea out
upon the high road! The chill outer air, the faint scent of mossy damp
and decay, the dim atmosphere without a sparkle in it, the absolute
quiet, would have better suited confidences of a different description.
But if business is not sentimental it is at least so urgent and
engrossing, that it becomes indifferent to circumstances. The do-nothing
calm of the Sunday closed curiously around the group; their rustling
papers and eager countenances brought the strangest interruption of
restless life into the almost dead and blank quiet. The season, the
weather, the hour, the brown quiescent fields in which for the only
moment of the year no mystery of growth was going on, but only a silent
waiting for the seeds and the spring; this day of leisure when
everything was at rest, all the surrounding circumstances united to
throw into full relief the strange centre to the landscape--the two
figures which brought a sharp interest of life into this still-breathing
atmosphere, and waiting stagnation, and Sunday calm.