It cannot be said that Uncle John was very happy with Philip, but that
was a thing the others did not take into account. John Tatham was doing
for the boy as much as a man could do. A great debate was expected that
evening, in which many eminent persons were to speak, and Mr. Tatham
gave Philip a hasty dinner in the House so that he should lose nothing,
and he found him a corner in the distinguished strangers’ gallery,
telling him with a smile that he expected him hereafter to prove his
title to such a place. But Philip’s smile in return was very unlike the
flush of pleasure that would have lighted it up only yesterday. John
felt that the boy was not at all the delightful young companion, full of
interest in everything, that he had been. Perhaps he was on his good
behaviour, on his dignity, bent upon showing how much of a man he was
and how little influenced by passing sentiments, as some boys do. Anyhow
it was certain that he was much less agreeable in his self-subdued
condition. But John was fortunately much interested in the discussion,
in which, indeed, he took himself a slight part, and, save for a passing
wonder and the disappointment of the moment, did not occupy himself so
very much with Pippo. When he looked into the corner, however, in a lull
of the debate, when one of those fools who rush in at unguarded
moments, when the Speaker chances to look their way, had managed to get
upon his foolish feet to the despair of all around, the experienced man
of the world received a curious shock from the sight of young Philip’s
intense gravity, and the self-absorbed, unconscious look he wore. The
boy had the look of hearing nothing, seeing nothing that was around him,
of being lost in thoughts of his own, thoughts far too serious and
troubled for his age. Had he discovered something? What did he know?
This was the instinctive question that rose in John’s mind, and not an
amused anticipation of Pippo’s original boyish view of the question and
the speakers, such as had delighted him on the boy’s previous visits to
the House. And indeed Philip’s attention was little fixed upon the
debate. He tried hard to bring it back, to keep it there, to get the
question into his mind, but in spite of himself his thoughts flew back
to the other public assembly in which he had sat unnoticed that day:
till gradually the aspect of things changed to him, the Speaker became
the judge, the wigged secretaries the pleaders, and he almost expected
to see that sudden apparition, that sight that had plucked him out of
his careless life of boyhood and trust, the sight of his mother standing
before the world on trial for her life. Oh, no, no, not on trial at all!
he was aware of that: a harmless witness, doing only good. The judge
could have nothing but polite regard for her, the jury admiration and
thanks for the clear testimony which took a weight from their
shoulders. But before her son she was on her trial, her trial for more
than life--and he who said with so much assurance that his mother had no
secrets from him! until the moment arrived, without any warning, in the
midst of his security, which proved that everything had been secret, and
that all was mystery--all mystery! and nothing sure in life.
It crossed Philip’s mind more than once to question John Tatham upon
this dreadful discovery of his--John, who was a relation, who had been
the universal referee of the household as long as he could remember,
Uncle John must know. But there were two things which held him back:
first, the recollection of his own disdainful offence at the suggestion
that Uncle John, an outsider, could know more than he did of the family
concerns; and partly from the proud determination to ask no questions,
to seek no information that was not freely given to him. He made up his
mind to this while he looked out from his corner upon the lighted House,
seeing men move up and down, and voices going on, and the sound of
restless members coming and going, while the business of the country
went on. It was far more important than any private affairs that could
be passing in an individual brain, and Philip knew with what high-handed
certainty he would have put down the idea that to himself at his age
there could be anything private half so exciting, half so full of
interest, as a debate on the policy of the country which might carry
with it the highest issues. But conviction comes readily on such
subjects when the personal interest comes which carries every other
away. It was while a minister was speaking, and everything hanging on
his words, that the boy made up his mind finally that he would ask no
questions. He would ignore that scene in the Law Courts, as if it had
not been. He would say nothing, try to look as if nothing had passed,
and wait to see if any explanation would come.
It was not, perhaps, then to be wondered at if John found him a much
less interesting companion than ever before, as they walked home
together in the small hours of the night. Mr. Tatham’s own speech had
been short, but he had the agreeable consciousness that it had been an
effective one, and he was prepared to find the boy excited by it, and
full of applause and satisfaction. But Philip did not say a word about
the speech. He was only a boy, and it may be supposed that any applause
from him would have had little importance for the famous lawyer--the
highly-esteemed member who kept his independence, and whose speeches
always secured the attention of the House, and carried weight as among
the few utterances which concerned the real import of a question and not
its mere party meaning. But John was hurt more than he could have
thought possible by Philip’s silence. He even tried to lead the
conversation artfully to that point in the debate, thinking perhaps the
boy was shy of speaking on the subject--but with no effect. It was
exceedingly strange. Had he been deceived in Philip? had the boy really
no interest in subjects of an elevated description? or was he ill? or
what was the matter with him? It troubled John to let him go on alone
from Halkin Street to his lodging, with a vague sense that something
might happen. But that was, of course, too absurd. “Tell your mother
I’ll come round in the afternoon to-morrow, as soon as I am free,” he
said, holding Philip’s hand. And then he added, paternally, still
holding that hand, “Go to bed at once, boy. You’ve had a tiring day.”
“Yes--I suppose so,” said Philip, drawing his hand away.
“I hope you haven’t done too much,” said John, still lingering. “You’re
too young for politics--and to sit up so late. I was wrong to keep you
out of bed.”
“I hope I’m not such a child as that,” said Philip, with a half-smile:
and then he went away, and John Tatham, with an anxious heart, closed
behind him his own door. If it were not for Elinor and her boy what a
life free of anxiety John would have had! Never any need to think with
solicitude of anything outside that peaceful door, no trouble with other
people’s feelings, with investigations what this or that look or word
meant. But perhaps it was Elinor and her boy, after all (none of his!
thinking of him as an outsider, having nothing to do with their most
intimate circle of confidence and natural defence), who, by means of
that very anxiety, kept alive the higher principles of humanity in John
Tatham’s heart.
Philip went home, walking quickly through the silent streets. They were
very silent at that advanced hour, yet not so completely but that there
was a woman who came up to the boy at the corner. Philip neither knew
nor desired to know what she said. He thought nothing about her one way
or another. He took a shilling out of his pocket and threw it to her as
he passed--walking on with the quick, elastic step which the sudden
acquaintance he had made with care had not been able to subdue. He saw
that there was still a faint light in his mother’s window when he
reached the house, but he would not disturb her. How little would he
have thought of disturbing her on any other occasion! “Are you asleep,
mother?” he would have said, looking in; and the time had never been
when Elinor was asleep. She had always heard him, always replied, always
been delighted to hear the account of what he had been doing, and how he
had enjoyed himself. But not to-night. With a heart full of longing, yet
of a sick revolt against the sight of her, he went past her door to his
room. He did not want to see her, and yet--oh, if she had only called to
him, if she had but said a word!
Elinor for her part was not asleep. She had slept a little while she was
sure that Philip was safely disposed of and herself secured from all
interruption; but when the time came for his return she slept no longer,
and had been lying for a long time holding her breath, listening to
every sound, when she heard his key in the latch and his foot on the
stair. Would he come in as he always did? or would he remember her
complaint of being tired, a complaint she so seldom made? It was as a
blow to Elinor when she heard his step go on past her door: and yet she
was glad. Had he come in there was a desperate thought in her mind that
she would call him to her bedside and in the dark, with his hand in
hers, tell him--all that there was to tell. But it was again a relief
when he passed on, and she felt that she was spared for an hour or two,
spared for the new day, which perhaps would give her courage. It was an
endless night, long hours of dark, and then longer hours of morning
light, too early for anything, while still nobody in the house was
stirring. She had scarcely slept at all during that long age of weary
and terrible thought. For it was not as if she had but one thing to
think of. When her mind turned, like her restless body, from one side to
another, it was only to a change of pain. What was it she had said,
standing up before earth and heaven, and calling God to witness that
what she said was true? It had been true, and yet she knew that it was
not, and that she had saved her husband’s honour at the cost of her own.
Oh, not in those serious and awful watches of the night can such a
defence be accepted as that the letter of her testimony was true! She
did not attempt to defend herself. She only tried to turn to another
thought that might be less bitter: and then she was confronted by the
confession that she must make to her boy. She must tell him that she
had deceived him all his life, hid from him what he ought to have known,
separated him from his father and his family, kept him in ignorance,
despite all that had been said to her, despite every argument. And when
Elinor in her misery fled from that thought, what was there else to
think of? There was her husband, Pippo’s father, from whom he could no
longer be kept. If she had thought herself justified in stealing her
child away out of fear of the influence that father might have upon him,
how would it be now when they must be restored to each other, at an age
much more dangerous for the boy than in childhood, and with all the
attractions of mystery and novelty and the sense that his father had
been wronged! When she escaped from that, the most terrible thought of
all, feeling her brain whirl and her heart burn as she imagined her
child turning from the mother who had deceived him to the father who had
been deprived of him, her mind went off to that father himself, from
whom she had fled, whom she had judged and condemned, but who had repaid
her by no persecution, no interference, no pursuit, but an acceptance of
her verdict, never molesting her, leaving her safe in the possession of
her boy. Perhaps there were other ways in which Phil Compton’s
magnanimity have been looked at, in which it would have shown in less
favourable colours. But Elinor was not ready to take that view. Her
tower of justice and truth and honour had crumbled over her head. She
was standing among her ruins, feeling that nothing was left to her,
nothing upon which she could build herself a structure of self-defence.
All was wrong; a series of mistakes and failures, to say no worse. She
had driven on ever wilful all through, escaping from every pang she
could avoid, throwing off every yoke that she did not choose to bear:
until now here she stood to face all that she had fled from, unable to
elude them more, meeting them as so many ghosts in her way. Oh, how true
it was what John had said to her so long, so long ago--that she was not
one who would bear, who if she were disappointed and wronged could
endure and surmount her trouble by patience! Oh, no, no! She had been
one who had put up with nothing, who had taken her own way. And now she
was surrounded on every side by the difficulties she had thrust away
from her, but which now could be thrust away no more.
It may be imagined what the night was which Elinor spent sleepless,
struggling one after another with these thoughts, finding no comfort
anywhere wherever she turned. She had not been without many a struggle
even in the most quiet of the years that had passed--in one long dream
of peace as it seemed now; but never as now had she been met wherever
she turned by another and another lion in the way. She got up very
early, with a feeling that movement had something lulling and soothing
in it, and that to lie there a prey to all these thoughts was like lying
on the rack--to the great surprise of the kind landlady, who came
stealing into her room with the inevitable cup of tea, and whose inquiry
how the poor lady was, was taken out of her mouth by the unexpected
apparition of the supposed invalid, fully dressed, moving about the
room, with all the air of having been up for hours. Elinor asked, with a
sudden precaution, that the newspapers might be brought up to her, not
so much for her own satisfaction--for it made her heart sick to think of
reading over in dreadful print, as would be done that morning at
millions of breakfast-tables, her own words: perhaps with comments on
herself and her history, which might fall into Pippo’s hands, and be
read by him before he knew: which was a sudden spur to herself and
evidence of the dread necessity of letting him know that story from her
own lips, which had not occurred to her before. She glanced over the
report with a sickening sense that all the privacy of sheltered life and
honourable silence was torn off from her, and that she was exposed as on
a pillory to the stare and the remarks of the world, and crushed the
paper away like a noxious thing into a drawer where the boy at least
would never find it. Vain thought! as if there was but one paper in the
world, as if he could not find it at every street corner, thrust into
his hand even as he walked along; but at all events for the moment he
would not see it, and she would have time--time to tell him before that
revelation could come in his way. She went down-stairs, with what a
tremor in her and sinking of her heart it would be impossible to say. To
have to condemn herself to her only child; to humble herself before him,
her boy, who thought there was no one like his mother; to let him know
that he had been deceived all his life, he who thought she had always
told him everything. Oh, poor mother! and oh, poor boy!
She was still sitting by the breakfast-table, waiting, in a chill fever,
if such a thing can be, for Philip, when a thing occurred which no one
could have thought of, and yet which was the most natural thing in the
world--which came upon Elinor like a thunderbolt, shattering all her
plans again just at the moment when, after so much shrinking and delay,
she had at last made up her mind to the one thing that must be done at
once. The sound of the driving up of a cab to the door made her go to
the window to look out, without producing any expectation in her mind:
for people were coming and going in Ebury Street all day long. She saw,
however, a box which she recognised upon the cab, and then the door was
opened and Mrs. Dennistoun stepped out. Her mother! the wonder was not
that she came now, but that she had not come much sooner. No letters for
several days, her child and her child’s child in town, and trouble in
the air! Mrs. Dennistoun had borne it as long as she could, but there
had come a moment when she could bear it no longer, and she too had
followed Pippo’s example and taken the night mail. Elinor stood
motionless at the window, and saw her mother arrive, and did not feel
capable of going to meet her, or of telling whether it was some dreadful
aggravation of evil, or an interposition of Providence to save her for
another hour at least from the ordeal before her.