ROLAND.
Roland Ashton had been in little doubt as to his own motives when he
came after so many years' indifference to "look up" his old
grandparents, and take up late, yet not too late, the traditions of
filial duty. These traditions, indeed, had no existence for this young
man. His mother, the victim of a dissipated and hopeless spendthrift,
had died when her children were young, and her father and mother had
stood aloof from all but the earliest years of the handful of boys and
girls she left behind. The children scrambled up somehow, and, as is not
unusual among children, whom the squalor of a parent's vice has
disgusted from their earliest consciousness, succeeded in doing well;
the girls making much better marriages than could have been hoped for;
the boys, flung into the world on their own account at a very early age,
finding the means of maintaining themselves, and even pushing forward to
a position as good as that which their father had lost. That father had
happily died and gone out of all power to injure them, a number of years
before, and it was only on a rare visit to the elder sister, who alone
knew much about the family connections, that Roland had learned
something of the state of affairs at Redborough.
Elinor was old enough to remember the time when the grandfather and
grandmother had taken charge of the little weeping band of babies in
their far-off helpless days, and she had kept up a certain
correspondence with them, when, half ruined by that effort, they were
saved by Catherine Vernon, the mysterious, wealthy cousin, of whose name
everybody in the family had heard. Elinor remembered so many details
when her memory was jogged, that it occurred to Roland that it would be
a very good thing to go down to Redborough and pay his grandfather a
visit. Catherine Vernon might turn out to be worth cultivating. She had
stepped in to save old Captain Morgan and his wife from the consequences
of their own liberality to their daughter's children. She had a little
colony of pensioners about her, Elinor was informed. She was very rich,
so rich that she did not know what to do with her money. There was a
swarm of Vernons round her, eating her up.
"We are her nearest relations on her mother's side," Elinor had said. "I
do not see why we should not have our chance too. Don't forget us,
Roland, if you make any way; and you ought to do something; for you have
the right way with women," his sister said, with some admiration and a
little doubt. Her faith was that he was sure to succeed, her doubt
whether his success would be of use to anybody but himself; but however
it might turn out, it was always better that one of the Ashtons should
benefit by Catherine Vernon's colossal fortune, than that it should all
go into the hands of the other people.
Roland himself was well aware that he had the right way with women. This
was not the result of art and calculation, but was pure nature. The
young man was bent upon his own ends, without much consideration, in
great matters, of other people. But in small matters he was very
considerate, and had a delightful way of deferring to the comfort of
those about him. And he had the power of looking interested, and even of
feeling interested in everybody he addressed. And he had fine eyes! What
more is needed to enable a young man to make his way with women? He was
very popular; he might have married well had he chosen to take that
step; indeed, the chief thing against him was, that he had wavered too
long more than once, before he could make up his mind to hurt the
feelings of a sensitive girl by not asking her to marry him. It was not,
to be sure, his fault, if they thought that was his meaning. A prudent
girl will never allow herself to think so until she is asked
point-blank; and when you came to investigate each case, there really
was nothing against Roland. He had made himself agreeable, but then,
that was his way. He could not help making himself agreeable. The very
tone of his voice changed when he spoke to any woman who pleased him,
and he was very catholic in his tastes. Most women pleased him if they
had good looks, or even the remains of good looks; or if they were
clever; or even if they were _nice_; and he was pleasant to all, old and
young. The quality was not without its dangers; but it had great
advantages. He came to Redborough fully determined to make the conquest
of Catherine Vernon, whom, save that she was rich and benevolent, he
knew very little about. Very rich (according to Elinor), rather
foolishly benevolent, old--a young man who has the right way with women
could scarcely be indifferent to such a description. He determined to
find an opportunity in the dull time of the year, when business was not
too exacting, to pay some of the long over-due respect and gratitude
which he owed to his grandfather. Captain Morgan professed to have cut
himself clear of all his relationships, but it was true that twenty
years before, he had spent everything he had, and deprived himself of
every comfort, he and his wife, for the maintenance of his daughter's
children. He had never got any return for this from the children, who
knew very little about him. And it was full time that Roland should come
with his power of making himself agreeable to pay the family debt--no
harm if he did something for the family fortunes by the way.
And it has been seen that the young man fully proved, and at once, the
justice of his sister's description of him. His grandmother, to be sure,
was vanquished by his very name, by a resemblance which she found out in
his mouth and eyelids to his mother, and by the old love which had never
been extinguished, and could not be extinguished in her motherly old
bosom. But Hester, by a mere chance encounter in the fire-light, without
even seeing him, without knowing his name, had been moved to a degree of
interest such as she was not conscious of having ever felt before. And
Catherine Vernon had yielded at once, and without a struggle, to his
influence. This was delightful enough, but after all it did not come to
very much, for Roland found himself plunged into the midst of a society
upon which he had not at all reckoned. The community at the Vernonry was
simple; he was prepared for that, and understood it. But when he went to
the Grange and made acquaintance with the closer circle there, the young
men to whom Catherine had made over the bank and all its interests, and
especially Edward, who was established as if he had been her son, in her
house, a change came over Roland's plans and anticipations. He had a
strong desire for his own advantage, and inclination to follow that
wherever it might lead him; but he was not malignant in his selfishness.
He had no wish to interfere, unless it proved to be absolutely
necessary, with another man's career, or to injure his fellow-creatures
in promoting his own interest. And it cannot be denied that he felt a
shock of disappointment which, as he found when he reasoned with himself
on the subject, was somewhat unreasonable. How could he expect the field
to be clear for him, and the rich, childless woman of fortune left at
his mercy? As if there were not crowds of other people in the world who
had a quick eye for their own advantage, and clear sight to see who was
likely to serve it! But these discoveries put him out. They made his
mission purposeless. They reduced it to the mere visit to his
grandfather, which he had called it, but which he by no means intended
it solely to be.
After this first shock of disappointment, however, Roland began to find
himself at once amused and interested by the new community, into the
midst of which he had dropped. The inmates of the Vernonry were all
simple enough. To be very poor and obliged to accept favours from a rich
relative, yet never to be able to escape the sense of humiliation, and a
grudge against those who are better off--that is indeed too general: and
it is even a conventional necessity of the imagination, that there
should be bickerings and private little spites among neighbours so
closely thrown together. Ashton did not see much of the Miss
Vernon-Ridgways, who had refused to know him at Catherine's house, nor
of their kindred spirit Mr. Mildmay Vernon; but he could imagine them,
and did so easily. Nor was the gentle little widow, who was now on one
side now on the other, according as the last speaker moved her, or the
young heroine her daughter, difficult to realise. But Catherine, and the
closer group of her relations, puzzled him more. That she should gauge
them all so exactly, yet go on with them, pouring kindness upon their
ungrateful heads with a sort of amusement at their ingratitude, almost a
malicious pleasure in it, surprised him less than that among all who
surrounded her there was no one who gave to her a real and faithful
devotion. And her faith in Edward, whose impatience of her bonds was the
greatest of all, seemed to Roland in his spectatorship so pitiful, that
he could scarcely help crying out against it to earth and heaven. He was
sorry for her all the more that she was so little sorry for herself, and
it seemed to him that of all her surroundings he was the only one who
was sorry for Catherine. Even his old people as he called them, did not
fathom that curse of her loneliness. They thought with everybody else
that Edward was a true son to her, studying her wishes, and thinking of
nothing so much as how to please her. It appalled him when he thought of
the snarl on Edward's lips, the profound discontent in his soul. It
would be cruel above all things to warn her--she who felt herself so
clear-sighted--of the deception she was the victim of; and yet what
could it come to but unhappiness? Roland felt himself overpowered and
almost overawed by this combination. Nobody but he, it seemed, had
divined it. He had walked back with Edward to the Grange after their
long talk and consultation, and had taken off his hat with a smile of
kindness to the indistinct figure still seated in the window, which
Edward recognised with a secret grimace. To see her seated there looking
out for their return, was a pleasure to the more genial spirit. It would
have pleased him to feel that there was some one who would look out for
his coming, who would watch him like this, with tenderness as he went
away. But then he had no experience of the kind in his own person, and
Edward perhaps had too much of it. While the one went indoors with a
bitter sense that he could go nowhere without being watched, the other
turned away with a pleasant look back, waving his hand to Catherine
Vernon in the window. She was not likely to adopt him, but she was kind
to him, a pleasant, handsome old woman, and a most creditable relative.
He was glad he had come if it were for that and no more. There were
other reasons too why Roland should be glad he had come. He had found a
new client, nay, a group of new clients, by whose means he could extend
his business and his prospects--solid people with real money to risk,
not men of straw. Though he was full of aspirations they were all of a
practical kind. He meant to make his fortune; he meant to do the very
best for his customers who trusted him as well as for himself, and his
spirits rose when he thought what a power of extensive and successful
operation would be given him by the money of all these new people who
were so eager to face the risks of speculation. They should not suffer
by it; their confidence in him should be repaid, and not only his, but
their fortunes would be made. The certainty of this went to his head a
little, like wine. It had been well for him to come. It had been the
most important step he had ever taken in his life. It was not what he
had hoped for, and yet it was the thing above all others that he wanted,
a new start for him in the world, and probably the turning-point of his
life. Other matters were small in comparison with this, and approbation
or disappointment has little to do with a new customer in any branch of
business. As for other interests he might have taken up on the way, the
importance of them was nothing. Hester was a pretty girl, and it was
natural to him to have an occupation of that sort in hand; but to
suppose that he was sufficiently interested to allow any thought of her
to beguile him from matters so much more serious, would have been vain
indeed. He felt just such a momentary touch of pique in hearing that she
was going to be married, as a woman-beauty does when she hears of any
conquests but her own. If she had seen him (Roland) first, she would not
have been, he felt, so easily won; but he laughed at himself for the
thought, as perhaps the woman-beauty would scarcely have been moved to
do.