No new revelations came back with them: no anticipations associated
with their return were realized. On the one forbidden subject of their
errand in London, there was no moving either the master or the mistress
of the house. Whatever their object might have been, they had to all
appearance successfully accomplished it—for they both returned in
perfect possession of their every-day looks and manners. Mrs.
Vanstone’s spirits had subsided to their natural quiet level; Mr.
Vanstone’s imperturbable cheerfulness sat as easily and indolently on
him as usual. This was the one noticeable result of their journey—this,
and no more. Had the household revolution run its course already? Was
the secret thus far hidden impenetrably, hidden forever?
Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for
centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the
surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed
over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has
been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the
substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the
thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who
betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of
revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a
secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.
How was the secret now hidden in the household at Combe-Raven doomed to
disclose itself? Through what coming event in the daily lives of the
father, the mother, and the daughters, was the law of revelation
destined to break the fatal way to discovery? The way opened (unseen by
the parents, and unsuspected by the children) through the first event
that happened after Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone’s return—an event which
presented, on the surface of it, no interest of greater importance than
the trivial social ceremony of a morning call.
Three days after the master and mistress of Combe-Raven had come back,
the female members of the family happened to be assembled together in
the morning-room. The view from the windows looked over the
flower-garden and shrubbery; this last being protected at its outward
extremity by a fence, and approached from the lane beyond by a
wicket-gate. During an interval in the conversation, the attention of
the ladies was suddenly attracted to this gate, by the sharp sound of
the iron latch falling in its socket. Some one had entered the
shrubbery from the lane; and Magdalen at once placed herself at the
window to catch the first sight of the visitor through the trees.
After a few minutes, the figure of a gentleman became visible, at the
point where the shrubbery path joined the winding garden-walk which led
to the house. Magdalen looked at him attentively, without appearing, at
first, to know who he was. As he came nearer, however, she started in
astonishment; and, turning quickly to her mother and sister, proclaimed
the gentleman in the garden to be no other than “Mr. Francis Clare.”
The visitor thus announced was the son of Mr. Vanstone’s oldest
associate and nearest neighbor.
Mr. Clare the elder inhabited an unpretending little cottage, situated
just outside the shrubbery fence which marked the limit of the
Combe-Raven grounds. Belonging to the younger branch of a family of
great antiquity, the one inheritance of importance that he had derived
from his ancestors was the possession of a magnificent library, which
not only filled all the rooms in his modest little dwelling, but lined
the staircases and passages as well. Mr. Clare’s books represented the
one important interest of Mr. Clare’s life. He had been a widower for
many years past, and made no secret of his philosophical resignation to
the loss of his wife. As a father, he regarded his family of three sons
in the light of a necessary domestic evil, which perpetually threatened
the sanctity of his study and the safety of his books. When the boys
went to school, Mr. Clare said “good-by” to them—and “thank God” to
himself. As for his small income, and his still smaller domestic
establishment, he looked at them both from the same satirically
indifferent point of view. He called himself a pauper with a pedigree.
He abandoned the entire direction of his household to the slatternly
old woman who was his only servant, on the condition that she was never
to venture near his books, with a duster in her hand, from one year’s
end to the other. His favorite poets were Horace and Pope; his chosen
philosophers, Hobbes and Voltaire. He took his exercise and his fresh
air under protest; and always walked the same distance to a yard, on
the ugliest high-road in the neighborhood. He was crooked of back, and
quick of temper. He could digest radishes, and sleep after green tea.
His views of human nature were the views of Diogenes, tempered by
Rochefoucauld; his personal habits were slovenly in the last degree;
and his favorite boast was that he had outlived all human prejudices.
Such was this singular man, in his more superficial aspects. What
nobler qualities he might possess below the surface, no one had ever
discovered. Mr. Vanstone, it is true, stoutly asserted that “Mr.
Clare’s worst side was his outside”—but in this expression of opinion
he stood alone among his neighbors. The association between these two
widely-dissimilar men had lasted for many years, and was almost close
enough to be called a friendship. They had acquired a habit of meeting
to smoke together on certain evenings in the week, in the
cynic-philosopher’s study, and of there disputing on every imaginable
subject—Mr. Vanstone flourishing the stout cudgels of assertion, and
Mr. Clare meeting him with the keen edged-tools of sophistry. They
generally quarreled at night, and met on the neutral ground of the
shrubbery to be reconciled together the next morning. The bond of
intercourse thus curiously established between them was strengthened on
Mr. Vanstone’s side by a hearty interest in his neighbor’s three
sons—an interest by which those sons benefited all the more
importantly, seeing that one of the prejudices which their father had
outlived was a prejudice in favor of his own children.
“I look at those boys,” the philosopher was accustomed to say, “with a
perfectly impartial eye; I dismiss the unimportant accident of their
birth from all consideration; and I find them below the average in
every respect. The only excuse which a poor gentleman has for presuming
to exist in the nineteenth century, is the excuse of extraordinary
ability. My boys have been addle-headed from infancy. If I had any
capital to give them, I should make Frank a butcher, Cecil a baker, and
Arthur a grocer—those being the only human vocations I know of which
are certain to be always in request. As it is, I have no money to help
them with; and they have no brains to help themselves. They appear to
me to be three human superfluities in dirty jackets and noisy boots;
and, unless they clear themselves off the community by running away, I
don’t myself profess to see what is to be done with them.”
Fortunately for the boys, Mr. Vanstone’s views were still fast
imprisoned in the ordinary prejudices. At his intercession, and through
his influence, Frank, Cecil, and Arthur were received on the foundation
of a well-reputed grammar-school. In holiday-time they were mercifully
allowed the run of Mr. Vanstone’s paddock; and were humanized and
refined by association, indoors, with Mrs. Vanstone and her daughters.
On these occasions, Mr. Clare used sometimes to walk across from his
cottage (in his dressing-gown and slippers), and look at the boys
disparagingly, through the window or over the fence, as if they were
three wild animals whom his neighbor was attempting to tame. “You and
your wife are excellent people,” he used to say to Mr. Vanstone. “I
respect your honest prejudices in favor of those boys of mine with all
my heart. But you are _so_ wrong about them—you are indeed! I wish to
give no offense; I speak quite impartially—but mark my words, Vanstone:
they’ll all three turn out ill, in spite of everything you can do to
prevent it.”
In later years, when Frank had reached the age of seventeen, the same
curious shifting of the relative positions of parent and friend between
the two neighbors was exemplified more absurdly than ever. A civil
engineer in the north of England, who owed certain obligations to Mr.
Vanstone, expressed his willingness to take Frank under
superintendence, on terms of the most favorable kind. When this
proposal was received, Mr. Clare, as usual, first shifted his own
character as Frank’s father on Mr. Vanstone’s shoulders—and then
moderated his neighbor’s parental enthusiasm from the point of view of
an impartial spectator.
“It’s the finest chance for Frank that could possibly have happened,”
cried Mr. Vanstone, in a glow of fatherly enthusiasm.
“My good fellow, he won’t take it,” retorted Mr. Clare, with the icy
composure of a disinterested friend.
“But he _shall_ take it,” persisted Mr. Vanstone.
“Say he shall have a mathematical head,” rejoined Mr. Clare; “say he
shall possess industry, ambition, and firmness of purpose. Pooh! pooh!
you don’t look at him with my impartial eyes. I say, No mathematics, no
industry, no ambition, no firmness of purpose. Frank is a compound of
negatives—and there they are.”
“Hang your negatives!” shouted Mr. Vanstone. “I don’t care a rush for
negatives, or affirmatives either. Frank shall have this splendid
chance; and I’ll lay you any wager you like he makes the best of it.”
“I am not rich enough to lay wagers, usually,” replied Mr. Clare; “but
I think I have got a guinea about the house somewhere; and I’ll lay you
that guinea Frank comes back on our hands like a bad shilling.”
“Done!” said Mr. Vanstone. “No: stop a minute! I won’t do the lad’s
character the injustice of backing it at even money. I’ll lay you five
to one Frank turns up trumps in this business! You ought to be ashamed
of yourself for talking of him as you do. What sort of hocus-pocus you
bring it about by, I don’t pretend to know; but you always end in
making me take his part, as if I was his father instead of you. Ah yes!
give you time, and you’ll defend yourself. I won’t give you time; I
won’t have any of your special pleading. Black’s white according to
you. I don’t care: it’s black for all that. You may talk nineteen to
the dozen—I shall write to my friend and say Yes, in Frank’s interests,
by to-day’s post.”
Such were the circumstances under which Mr. Francis Clare departed for
the north of England, at the age of seventeen, to start in life as a
civil engineer.
From time to time, Mr. Vanstone’s friend communicated with him on the
subject of the new pupil. Frank was praised, as a quiet,
gentleman-like, interesting lad—but he was also reported to be rather
slow at acquiring the rudiments of engineering science. Other letters,
later in date, described him as a little too ready to despond about
himself; as having been sent away, on that account, to some new railway
works, to see if change of scene would rouse him; and as having
benefited in every respect by the experiment—except perhaps in regard
to his professional studies, which still advanced but slowly.
Subsequent communications announced his departure, under care of a
trustworthy foreman, for some public works in Belgium; touched on the
general benefit he appeared to derive from this new change; praised his
excellent manners and address, which were of great assistance in
facilitating business communications with the foreigners—and passed
over in ominous silence the main question of his actual progress in the
acquirement of knowledge. These reports, and many others which
resembled them, were all conscientiously presented by Frank’s friend to
the attention of Frank’s father. On each occasion, Mr. Clare exulted
over Mr. Vanstone, and Mr. Vanstone quarreled with Mr. Clare. “One of
these days you’ll wish you hadn’t laid that wager,” said the cynic
philosopher. “One of these days I shall have the blessed satisfaction
of pocketing your guinea,” cried the sanguine friend. Two years had
then passed since Frank’s departure. In one year more results asserted
themselves, and settled the question.
Two days after Mr. Vanstone’s return from London, he was called away
from the breakfast-table before he had found time enough to look over
his letters, delivered by the morning’s post. Thrusting them into one
of the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he took the letters out again,
at one grasp, to read them when occasion served, later in the day. The
grasp included the whole correspondence, with one exception—that
exception being a final report from the civil engineer, which notified
the termination of the connection between his pupil and himself, and
the immediate return of Frank to his father’s house.
While this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr. Vanstone’s
pocket, the object of it was traveling home, as fast as railways could
take him. At half-past ten at night, while Mr. Clare was sitting in
studious solitude over his books and his green tea, with his favorite
black cat to keep him company, he heard footsteps in the passage—the
door opened—and Frank stood before him.
Ordinary men would have been astonished. But the philosopher’s
composure was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected
return of his eldest son. He could not have looked up more calmly from
his learned volume if Frank had been absent for three minutes instead
of three years.
“Exactly what I predicted,” said Mr. Clare. “Don’t interrupt me by
making explanations; and don’t frighten the cat. If there is anything
to eat in the kitchen, get it and go to bed. You can walk over to
Combe-Raven tomorrow and give this message from me to Mr. Vanstone:
‘Father’s compliments, sir, and I have come back upon your hands like a
bad shilling, as he always said I should. He keeps his own guinea, and
takes your five; and he hopes you’ll mind what he says to you another
time.’ That is the message. Shut the door after you. Good-night.”
Under these unfavorable auspices, Mr. Francis Clare made his appearance
the next morning in the grounds at Combe-Raven; and, something doubtful
of the reception that might await him, slowly approached the precincts
of the house.
It was not wonderful that Magdalen should have failed to recognize him
when he first appeared in view. He had gone away a backward lad of
seventeen; he returned a young man of twenty. His slim figure had now
acquired strength and grace, and had increased in stature to the medium
height. The small regular features, which he was supposed to have
inherited from his mother, were rounded and filled out, without having
lost their remarkable delicacy of form. His beard was still in its
infancy; and nascent lines of whisker traced their modest way sparely
down his cheeks. His gentle, wandering brown eyes would have looked to
better advantage in a woman’s face—they wanted spirit and firmness to
fit them for the face of a man. His hands had the same wandering habit
as his eyes; they were constantly changing from one position to
another, constantly twisting and turning any little stray thing they
could pick up. He was undeniably handsome, graceful, well-bred—but no
close observer could look at him without suspecting that the stout old
family stock had begun to wear out in the later generations, and that
Mr. Francis Clare had more in him of the shadow of his ancestors than
of the substance.
When the astonishment caused by his appearance had partially subsided,
a search was instituted for the missing report. It was found in the
remotest recesses of Mr. Vanstone’s capacious pocket, and was read by
that gentleman on the spot.
The plain facts, as stated by the engineer, were briefly these: Frank
was not possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new
calling; and it was useless to waste time by keeping him any longer in
an employment for which he had no vocation. This, after three years’
trial, being the conviction on both sides, the master had thought it
the most straightforward course for the pupil to go home and candidly
place results before his father and his friends. In some other pursuit,
for which he was more fit, and in which he could feel an interest, he
would no doubt display the industry and perseverance which he had been
too much discouraged to practice in the profession that he had now
abandoned. Personally, he was liked by all who knew him; and his future
prosperity was heartily desired by the many friends whom he had made in
the North. Such was the substance of the report, and so it came to an
end.
Many men would have thought the engineer’s statement rather too
carefully worded; and, suspecting him of trying to make the best of a
bad case, would have entertained serious doubts on the subject of
Frank’s future. Mr. Vanstone was too easy-tempered and sanguine—and too
anxious, as well, not to yield his old antagonist an inch more ground
than he could help—to look at the letter from any such unfavorable
point of view. Was it Frank’s fault if he had not got the stuff in him
that engineers were made of? Did no other young men ever begin life
with a false start? Plenty began in that way, and got over it, and did
wonders afterward. With these commentaries on the letter, the
kind-hearted gentleman patted Frank on the shoulder. “Cheer up, my
lad!” said Mr. Vanstone. “We will be even with your father one of these
days, though he _has_ won the wager this time!”
The example thus set by the master of the house was followed at once by
the family—with the solitary exception of Norah, whose incurable
formality and reserve expressed themselves, not too graciously, in her
distant manner toward the visitor. The rest, led by Magdalen (who had
been Frank’s favorite playfellow in past times) glided back into their
old easy habits with him without an effort. He was “Frank” with all of
them but Norah, who persisted in addressing him as “Mr. Clare.” Even
the account he was now encouraged to give of the reception accorded to
him by his father, on the previous night, failed to disturb Norah’s
gravity. She sat with her dark, handsome face steadily averted, her
eyes cast down, and the rich color in her cheeks warmer and deeper than
usual. All the rest, Miss Garth included, found old Mr. Clare’s speech
of welcome to his son quite irresistible. The noise and merriment were
at their height when the servant came in, and struck the whole party
dumb by the announcement of visitors in the drawing-room. “Mr.
Marrable, Mrs. Marrable, and Miss Marrable; Evergreen Lodge, Clifton.”
Norah rose as readily as if the new arrivals had been a relief to her
mind. Mrs. Vanstone was the next to leave her chair. These two went
away first, to receive the visitors. Magdalen, who preferred the
society of her father and Frank, pleaded hard to be left behind; but
Miss Garth, after granting five minutes’ grace, took her into custody
and marched her out of the room. Frank rose to take his leave.
“No, no,” said Mr. Vanstone, detaining him. “Don’t go. These people
won’t stop long. Mr. Marrable’s a merchant at Bristol. I’ve met him
once or twice, when the girls forced me to take them to parties at
Clifton. Mere acquaintances, nothing more. Come and smoke a cigar in
the greenhouse. Hang all visitors—they worry one’s life out. I’ll
appear at the last moment with an apology; and you shall follow me at a
safe distance, and be a proof that I was really engaged.”
Proposing this ingenious stratagem in a confidential whisper, Mr.
Vanstone took Frank’s arm and led him round the house by the back way.
The first ten minutes of seclusion in the conservatory passed without
events of any kind. At the end of that time, a flying figure in bright
garments flashed upon the two gentlemen through the glass—the door was
flung open—flower-pots fell in homage to passing petticoats—and Mr.
Vanstone’s youngest daughter ran up to him at headlong speed, with
every external appearance of having suddenly taken leave of her senses.
“Papa! the dream of my whole life is realized,” she said, as soon as
she could speak. “I shall fly through the roof of the greenhouse if
somebody doesn’t hold me down. The Marrables have come here with an
invitation. Guess, you darling—guess what they’re going to give at
Evergreen Lodge!”
“A ball!” said Mr. Vanstone, without a moment’s hesitation.
“Private Theatricals!!!” cried Magdalen, her clear young voice ringing
through the conservatory like a bell; her loose sleeves falling back
and showing her round white arms to the dimpled elbows, as she clapped
her hands ecstatically in the air. “‘The Rivals’ is the play, papa—‘The
Rivals,’ by the famous what’s-his-name—and they want ME to act! The one
thing in the whole universe that I long to do most. It all depends on
you. Mamma shakes her head; and Miss Garth looks daggers; and Norah’s
as sulky as usual—but if you say Yes, they must all three give way and
let me do as I like. Say Yes,” she pleaded, nestling softly up to her
father, and pressing her lips with a fond gentleness to his ear, as she
whispered the next words. “Say Yes, and I’ll be a good girl for the
rest of my life.”
“A good girl?” repeated Mr. Vanstone—“a mad girl, I think you must
mean. Hang these people and their theatricals! I shall have to go
indoors and see about this matter. You needn’t throw away your cigar,
Frank. You’re well out of the business, and you can stop here.”
“No, he can’t,” said Magdalen. “He’s in the business, too.”
Mr. Francis Clare had hitherto remained modestly in the background. He
now came forward with a face expressive of speechless amazement.
“Yes,” continued Magdalen, answering his blank look of inquiry with
perfect composure. “You are to act. Miss Marrable and I have a turn for
business, and we settled it all in five minutes. There are two parts in
the play left to be filled. One is Lucy, the waiting-maid; which is the
character I have undertaken—with papa’s permission,” she added, slyly
pinching her father’s arm; “and he won’t say No, will he? First,
because he’s a darling; secondly, because I love him, and he loves me;
thirdly, because there is never any difference of opinion between us
(is there?); fourthly, because I give him a kiss, which naturally stops
his mouth and settles the whole question. Dear me, I’m wandering. Where
was I just now? Oh yes! explaining myself to Frank—”
“I beg your pardon,” began Frank, attempting, at this point, to enter
his protest.
“The second character in the play,” pursued Magdalen, without taking
the smallest notice of the protest, “is Falkland—a jealous lover, with
a fine flow of language. Miss Marrable and I discussed Falkland
privately on the window-seat while the rest were talking. She is a
delightful girl—so impulsive, so sensible, so entirely unaffected. She
confided in me. She said: ‘One of our miseries is that we can’t find a
gentleman who will grapple with the hideous difficulties of Falkland.’
Of course I soothed her. Of course I said: ‘I’ve got the gentleman, and
he shall grapple immediately.’—‘Oh heavens! who is he?’—‘Mr. Francis
Clare.’—‘And where is he?’—‘In the house at this moment.’—‘Will you be
so very charming, Miss Vanstone, as to fetch him?’—‘I’ll fetch him,
Miss Marrable, with the greatest pleasure.’ I left the window-seat—I
rushed into the morning-room—I smelled cigars—I followed the smell—and
here I am.”
“It’s a compliment, I know, to be asked to act,” said Frank, in great
embarrassment. “But I hope you and Miss Marrable will excuse me—”
“Certainly not. Miss Marrable and I are both remarkable for the
firmness of our characters. When we say Mr. So-and-So is positively to
act the part of Falkland, we positively mean it. Come in and be
introduced.”
“But I never tried to act. I don’t know how.”
“Not of the slightest consequence. If you don’t know how, come to me
and I’ll teach you.”
“You!” exclaimed Mr. Vanstone. “What do you know about it?”
“Pray, papa, be serious! I have the strongest internal conviction that
I could act every character in the play—Falkland included. Don’t let me
have to speak a second time, Frank. Come and be introduced.”
She took her father’s arm, and moved on with him to the door of the
greenhouse. At the steps, she turned and looked round to see if Frank
was following her. It was only the action of a moment; but in that
moment her natural firmness of will rallied all its
resources—strengthened itself with the influence of her beauty
—commanded—and conquered. She looked lovely: the flush was tenderly
bright in her cheeks; the radiant pleasure shone and sparkled in her
eyes; the position of her figure, turned suddenly from the waist
upward, disclosed its delicate strength, its supple firmness, its
seductive, serpentine grace. “Come!” she said, with a coquettish
beckoning action of her head. “Come, Frank!”
Few men of forty would have resisted her at that moment. Frank was
twenty last birthday. In other words, he threw aside his cigar, and
followed her out of the greenhouse.
As he turned and closed the door—in the instant when he lost sight of
her—his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals
revived. At the foot of the house-steps he stopped again; plucked a
twig from a plant near him; broke it in his hand; and looked about him
uneasily, on this side and on that. The path to the left led back to
his father’s cottage—the way of escape lay open. Why not take it?
While he still hesitated, Mr. Vanstone and his daughter reached the top
of the steps. Once more, Magdalen looked round—looked with her
resistless beauty, with her all-conquering smile. She beckoned again;
and again he followed her—up the steps, and over the threshold. The
door closed on them.
So, with a trifling gesture of invitation on one side, with a trifling
act of compliance on the other: so—with no knowledge in his mind, with
no thought in hers, of the secret still hidden under the journey to
London—they took the way which led to that secret’s discovery, through
many a darker winding that was yet to come.