The marriage followed with little delay, and Mr Thursley’s settlements
on his daughter were not illiberal. Gervase paid but little attention to
these business preliminaries, except to settle the ten thousand pounds
so opportunely but so unsatisfactorily bestowed upon him, upon Madeline;
it seemed to him that he had nothing to do with the matter. The house
sold well, and brought him enough for his merely personal needs, and it
was a kind of relief to his mind that the equivocal ten thousand did
not, so to speak, soil his own fingers at all, but went at once to
Madeline--which was a fantastical consolation, since, of course, their
produce formed a large part of the income upon which the young pair had
to live. They set themselves up in a pretty old-fashioned house, happily
discovered in a ramble, and bearing a dilapidated aspect which delighted
both. They made of it a paradise, according to their enlightened
notions, too enlightened to be altogether in bondage to Liberty and
Burnet, yet using these pioneers of art judiciously, and finding a great
deal of entertainment in the old furniture shops through which they made
many raids, scorning the recognised artists in that particular, the
Gillows, and the Jacksons and Grahams, as is the manner of their kind.
Even Gervase, it must be allowed, got a great deal of entertainment out
of the furnishing, notwithstanding the various cares which lay upon his
heart.
He had made all possible inquiries, it need scarcely be said, at once at
the bank to endeavour to trace the money--but in vain; and he had set on
foot all the researches that were practicable to find some trace of his
father. But it would seem, though it is a theory rather against modern
notions, that it is more easy for a man to disappear than for the most
experienced pursuers to find him. He was asked for over half America,
which is a big word; he was sought in Australia; the foreign baths and
watering-places, where it was so very unlikely such a man should go,
were ransacked for him: but no trace, not so much as a footprint,
anywhere could be found. He had disappeared as criminals often do, and
innocent people sometimes, and after a long period of ineffectual
exertions, the pursuit was given up. Whether Gilbert, the man left in
charge of the house, knew anything, Gervase never could find out; but if
he did, he was proof against all inducements to speak, and never
betrayed his old master.
And the young people settled down, far from the excitements and cares of
that business life which Gervase had evaded so successfully, in what is
perhaps the most enjoyable of all the ordinary paths of modern
existence. All paths of existence are tolerable when people are young
and happy and not badly off, though it is not always that these
favourites of fortune recognise the fact. Gervase had been one of the
most obstinate in his struggle against it, and the most determined to
have his own way. Perhaps he considered now that his happiness was owing
to the persistence with which he had struggled for his own way. At all
events, he had the grace to be very happy, and grumbled no more. He was
not indeed a person of literary genius, but he was a man with a subject,
which in many cases answers better, as a means of acquiring reputation
at least. He had studied very closely, during his forced residence
there, the conditions of the West Indian islands. It is a subject of
which there are but few qualified exponents. He had seen a great deal
of all classes, from the impracticable negro to the demoralised
Englishman. Agents, lawyers, all the curious insular community had
revealed themselves to him. His experience and his observations were
both to be respected, and gave him authority. And he thus acquired
rapidly--much more rapidly than had he been a man of genius--a certain
recognised position and reputation. He had his subject, in which he was
competent to criticise the very first of fine writers, and even with the
aid of facts to put him down.
It was some years after these events, and when the young pair had
already provided themselves with a sort of a curb upon their wanderings
in the shape of a nursery, that they made an expedition in the summer
to the Lake country. It was comparatively early in the year, before the
time of the tourists had begun, and they had the lakes and dales
comparatively to themselves. They were wandering along the side of one
of the lesser lakes one evening, when it lay in the ecstasy of sunset
and silence, commemorated by the poet of those northern wilds. “Silent
as a nun, breathless with adoration.” The hills that clustered round in
every imaginable peak and slope, like a hundred fantastic yet
sympathetic spectators, were appearing over each other’s shoulders, each
in its turn catching the last gleam of the light. Our travellers had
been wandering along, lingering over every new combination, pointing out
to each other new wonders, over and over again repeated. Finally, as
the light began to forsake them, Madeline had gone on a little in
advance, while Gervase paused to gather, in a marshy corner close to the
lake, a flower which was characteristic of that country and rare in
other places. He followed her in about ten minutes, with wet feet, but
carrying his flower in triumph. They had passed in the morning a pretty
house, half cottage, half villa, near the water, and had remarked its
cheerful little lawn, the small protecting shrubbery round, its
sheltered position under the lea of a great cliff which protected it
from the east and north, and the abundance of flowers everywhere. As
Gervase came along the road now, hurrying to overtake Madeline, he saw
a burly figure approaching the gate. There was too little light to make
the features distinguishable at such a distance, but something in the
man’s walk and the outline of his figure made the young man’s heart stop
beating. What a strange familiar aspect the passing figure bore! the
shape and outline, the way in which he planted his feet, the measure of
his step, the coat thrown back a little from his chest. Gervase stood
still, and his breath came quick. The man at whom he was gazing ascended
soberly to the sloping path round the lawn. The door opened, and two or
three children burst out, receiving him with cries of welcome. He took
up one, an infant, in his arms, and disappeared within the door.
Gervase had dropped his flower in the shock of this apparition. He found
himself standing breathless in the middle of the road, staring blankly
at the house within which this stranger had disappeared. He was
bewildered, stupefied, and yet excited, he could scarcely tell how. By
what?--by nothing that he could put into words: by an impression of
something well known, familiar as his own voice, and yet so strange,
unexpected, impossible. While he stood thus astonished, undecided, not
knowing what to think, the sound of hurrying footsteps filled the
silence, and Madeline suddenly appeared running towards him. She put out
her hands and grasped his arm. “Gervase, Gervase! did you see him?” she
cried.
“Whom? I saw--a man going up to that house.”
“A man! Then you did not see--you did not recognise----” She leant
against him, out of breath with haste and agitation.
“Madeline, you don’t think----? There was something in his walk--and his
figure.”
“I think nothing--I saw him--he passed me quite close. I saw him as
plainly as I see you.”
“Could it be--a mere chance resemblance? Such things are.”
“No--I could not be mistaken. It was your father. I don’t think he
noticed me at all. He was looking at the house with the air of a man
going home.”
“There were children,” said Gervase.
“He can only be--a visitor.”
At that moment some one above them among the shrubberies came out, and
calling apparently from the back of the house towards the stables, bade
some one else come in--come in directly; for the master had just come
home.
The two on the road looked at each other with wondering eyes. They were
both very much excited--a discovery so strange, so unlikely and unlooked
for, and surrounded with circumstances so bewildering, confused every
sense. They stood for some minutes consulting what they should do.
Gervase was so much astounded, so taken aback by what he had seen, that
he inclined to the supposition of a resemblance. “There were children,”
he repeated, blankly. But Madeline had no sort of doubt. After a while
they went back to their inn, which was a small and homely one in the
bosom of a valley, little frequented by visitors, where the landlady
herself cooked their dinners, and came and looked on, kindly urging them
to eat, while they consumed it. They asked her who lived in the house
close by, and received at once the fullest explanations. “Very quiet
folks, but most respectable--the gentleman a deal older than his good
lady. No, they’ve not been very long here--four or five years, not more.
Very particular about their newspapers and things coming; but just very
quiet folks, staying in their own house summer and winter, and seeing no
company. She’s just an uncommon nice lady, and very friendly--and will
stop for a chat without a bit of pride; but he keeps himself to
himself, being a kind of an elderly gentleman.”
“Do you know his name?” Madeline asked; for Gervase in his bewilderment
was scarcely capable of speech.
“Do I know his name?--bless me! you must think us queer folks--as well
as I know my own. He’s Mr Burton, and the house is Hillhead. You’ll
maybe know the gentleman?”
“I think--my husband knows him,” Madeline said.
To find that there was no concealment,--that the man who had disappeared
so strangely was living here in perfect unblemished respectability and
security, with no mystery about him, increased in the most curious way
the excitement of the discovery. But there arose, at this point, a
remarkable difference between the young pair. For Madeline, bewildered
by the thought of the unsuspected domestic establishment, did all she
could to convince her husband that to go away and take no notice was the
kindest and best thing to do. “You can write,” she said. “It would
embarrass him to see you. He would have to explain. Gervase, don’t
disturb the seclusion he has chosen.” She grew quite warm upon this
subject, with an uneasy look in her eyes.
“There is no reason why he should be embarrassed. I am not his judge.
But I must see him,” Gervase said. They spent a disturbed and anxious
night, so disturbed by the strange discovery, so startled by the
circumstances, that neither slept much. And in the morning,
notwithstanding Madeline’s opposition, Gervase set out to see the lost
father, who had thus reversed all natural circumstances. Hillhead looked
brighter than ever in the morning sunshine. The lake lay at the foot of
the knoll, like a sheet of silver. Two or three tiny children were
playing upon the lawn. As Gervase approached the door, the master of the
house came out with a newspaper in his hand and a cigar. He sat down in
a wicker chair upon the lawn. He cast a glance upon the lovely landscape
and the playing children. The air of a man entirely at his ease, under
his own vine and his own fig-tree, was in every movement. Gervase’s
step, in his agitation, was very quick and light. Apparently it was not
till he was quite near that it was heard by the comfortable
paterfamilias with his newspaper. Then one of the children, a little
girl of four or five, startled by the sight of the stranger, ran and
stood by her father’s knee. “What is it?” Gervase heard him say. And
then he looked up from behind the newspaper, and the father and son met.
Mr Burton was evidently much startled. He rose hastily from his chair,
dropping his paper. A curious tremor seemed to come over his solid
well-set-up figure, that of a vigorous man of sixty or so. Men do not
blush easily at that age; but there came a wave of hot colour over his
face. He seemed to hesitate a moment, then--“Why, Gervase, how have you
managed to find me out at the end of the world?” he said, with a nervous
attempt at a laugh. Gervase saw, agitated as he himself was, the hurried
glance at the children, which made his father look like a prodigal
discovered.
He explained hurriedly that it was mere chance which had brought him
here, and with great embarrassment, that he had tried every means of
discovering his father’s whereabouts for years, but in vain.
“That is strange,” Mr Burton said. He had, in the meantime, reassured
himself by seeing that the embarrassment was fully more great on the
part of Gervase than on his own. “That is strange: for I have attempted
no concealment. I have been living here, as you may have discovered,
ever since I--left London.”
“Yes,” said Gervase, “we have heard. I saw you last night, sir, coming
home--though too far off to be more than startled by your walk and
figure, which I felt I recognised--but Madeline met you in the road.”
“Madeline! To be sure, you are married! I have to congratulate you,
Gervase.”
“And I,” said the young man, “have to thank you, father. But for the
money you sent me so generously--so opportunely----”
“The money I sent you!”
“That ten thousand pounds----”
“Ten thousand pounds! You must be dreaming. I have not ten thousand
pence--more than I require for myself.”
“Then it was not from you?”
“Certainly it was not from me. I thought you provided for with the money
you brought from the West Indies--which, as I saw by the papers, you
threw away. Certainly after that exploit, if I had been able to spare
ten thousand pounds, I should not have sent it to you to make ducks and
drakes of.” Mr Burton was too glad of the opportunity to regain a
position more befitting their relationship, and Gervase was too much
lost in the confusion of his thoughts to say a word; but the prodigal
father was suddenly brought down from this brief superiority by the
sudden appearance at the door of a pretty young woman, half lady, half
housekeeper, who, calling to him as Mr Burton, begged to know whether
the meat was coming by the coach, or if the butcher----. She paused when
she saw the stranger, and said, “Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn’t see as
any one was with you,”--retreating again, though not without a lingering
look of curiosity. Again the flush of an unbecoming embarrassment
passed over Mr Burton’s face.
“Come here, Mary,” he said. “Gervase, this is my wife. We--we--were
married some years before I--left.”
She rubbed her hand surreptitiously with her apron before she held it
out. “Will--the gentleman stay to dinner, Mr Burton?” she said.
The eyes of the father and son met. In the one there was an appeal for
forbearance, an apology, an entreaty. Do not disturb my peace, they
seemed to say. In the other nothing but confusion and bewilderment.
Gervase said hastily, “We are going away this morning.” He saw the look
of relief in Mr Burton’s eyes with a sympathetic sensation. He,
himself, wanted nothing so much as to get away.
Young Mrs Burton lingered a little. She called her children about her--a
pretty group--evidently with the intention of showing her husband’s
friend, with natural pride, what there was to be said on her side. Mr
Burton looked at them with a less justifiable but not less natural
pride, not untouched with shame, in his elderly eyes. “That will do,
that will do, Mary; take them away,” he cried. Then he said, turning to
his son, “I see you agree with me, Gervase, that it’s better not to
disturb her mind. She’s a very good wife to me, and takes great care of
me--and the children.”
“They are beautiful children,” said Gervase.
“Are they not?” cried the old gentleman, exultant. But he checked
himself, and put a few formal questions about his son’s affairs, walking
with him towards the gate. “I am very glad to have seen you,” he
said--“sincerely glad. You can let me know when anything particular
happens. Otherwise don’t trouble about correspondence. And I need not
ask you to say nothing about your discovery, nor my present address,
nor----”
“You may rely upon me, father.”
“That’s quite enough--that’s quite enough. God bless you, my boy! I am
sincerely glad to have seen you--good-bye, good-bye!” Mr Burton said.
Gervase walked back along the lake-side, with a clouded brow and a
bewildered mind. He could not think of his father’s strange new
position, for thinking of the mystery rediscovered in his own life. If
it did not come from Mr Burton, from whom did it come, that ten thousand
pounds? He met Madeline about half-way to the inn. She told him she had
been too much excited to rest; that she had come to meet him out of pure
nervousness. “Tell me all about it,” she said, looking in his face with
very bright, feverish, uneasy eyes.
“Madeline,” he said, “my father did not send me that ten thousand
pounds.”
“Dear Gervase, is that all you have to tell me? Tell me about him, about
_her_, about those children.”
“If my father did not send it, who did? There is no other question in
the world for me till I know this. I must find out. I am going home at
once.”
“Let us go by all means; but that is an old affair. Surely now you may
let it rest.”
He put his hands upon her shoulders and looked into her face. “You would
not answer so lightly if it were as much a mystery to you as to me.
Madeline, at least tell me the truth.”
She freed herself from his hold and from his gaze, with a burst of
nervous laughter; then clinging to his arm, and pressing her head
against his shoulder, made her confession. “It was the ten thousand
pounds my old aunt left me to be at my own disposal--nobody knew but old
Mr Mentore, who did not disapprove. You wanted it only to settle it upon
me. Gervase, what was the harm?”
“Only that you played a trick upon me, Madeline, when I trusted you so
entirely--only that you have deceived me into owing you everything, when
I thought----”
“And are you so ungenerous,” she cried, “so formal, so conventional,
Gervase--oh, forgive me for saying it--as to mind? Would you rather we
had not married, had not loved perhaps, had not been happy--to save your
pride?”
It is a fine thing to assume indignation and a high superiority to
sublunary motives. Gervase was beaten down by this appeal and reproach.
He was in fact a very happy man; and he knew, which was a great solace
to that pride which he could not have met otherwise, that he was a very
creditable husband. And it was indeed all past, and could not be
changed. He did not maintain a grudge for such a cause against his
wife.
But it cannot be denied that it gave him many thoughts. This anxious
mysterious world in which even the nearest and dearest can thus deceive
each other; where thoughts unknown to us go on within the heads that
share our very pillow, and secret stories exist in the soberest and most
well regulated of lives. What a strange world it is! and how little we
know!
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.