Ah! Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
_Richard the Second._
It was about three weeks after this time that Mr. Addison went one day
to visit a housemaid at Underwood, the same who had been ill the
previous summer, and who was now declining in health.
The housekeeper at Underwood was a conversible person, who, though well
able to solace herself with the society of her equals, was much
attached to that of her superiors; and having been for some time cut off
from the latter enjoyment, determined to make the most of the
opportunity thrown in her way. She watched Mr. Addison as he left the
housemaid’s room, and then accompanied him down the stairs, along the
passages, and into the garden, giving him some instructions on the best
mode of visiting of the sick as they went along. Mr. Addison, always a
kind and patient listener, suffered her to proceed without interruption;
perhaps, however, only half his intellect followed her words, until
having assured him that she esteemed his visit a privilege, she
surprised him into interest by thus concluding. “And if, sir, a certain
event that is probable should make you as much at home at Underwood as
you now are at Audley Court, your society will be duly appreciated.”
“Of what event do you speak?” he enquired, his attention caught less by
her words, than by a knowing and confidential look in her face.
“Why, Sir, it is commonly reported, and I believe with truth, that Mr.
Vavasour is extremely assiduous in his attentions to Miss Gresham, and,
indeed, I am given to understand that matters will soon come to an
arrangement between them. It is hinted, indeed, that Mr. Vavasour is
conducting his courtship with secresy and mystery; but I refuse to
believe such calumnious assertions; for though it is natural to young
gentlemen to conceal their proceedings from the observation of the
vulgar, it is not to be supposed that he would take a step of such
importance, without the sanction of his father and other natural
advisers.” Nevertheless, as she looked in Mr. Addison’s face, she did
begin to believe it possible, and to glory in her prior information.
Supposing her to speak of Everard, and feeling confident that secresy
and mystery in this matter was as far from Everard as from himself, Mr.
Addison gravely said, “You say truly, Mrs. Stevenson; and considering
how much annoyance you may cause your young mistress by spreading an
idle report, I must advise you to dismiss the subject from your mind,
until better authority confirms it.”
But Mrs. Stevenson had no intention of dismissing the subject. She told
him, indeed, that she should always esteem it a privilege to be advised
by him; but, she added, that on this occasion, she believed she was
justified in keeping the subject in mind, seeing that in a few days, the
marriage, she had reason to imagine, would be announced, “And as I am
speaking to one of the family,” she continued, “or I should say a friend
of the family, I hope I may be allowed to express my hearty approbation
of the alliance. I should have made no objection to Mr. Everard
Vavasour; when observation told me that that alliance was possible, I
expressed my concurrence to Mr. Cocks in such words as these; ‘wealth is
well matched with family, even when family stands without wealth; for
family is that thing which wealth can never buy;’ but if such was my
feeling with respect to Mr. Everard, what must it be towards Mr.
Vavasour, who has been distinguished by Providence with every
distinction His bounty can bestow? If I were a young lady, nay if I were
a young princess, and every king in Europe was presented to my choice, I
would take Mr. Vavasour by the hand before them all.”
She paused, more from want of breath than words or matter, and Mr.
Addison seizing the opportunity, after one more grave caution against
the spreading of false reports, wished her good morning, and left her.
But though he gave his caution as a point of natural duty, conviction of
the truth of what she said had entered his soul. In vain he repeated
that the gossip of a large establishment was to be unheeded; with
strange tenacity the news he had heard laid hold of his imagination, and
as he slowly walked along, his mind was agitated with such feelings of
sorrow and dismay as he had scarcely ever experienced before.
All his hopes for the earthly happiness, and the immortal souls of the
four young beings, in whom his interests were so deeply rooted, brought
to this untimely end; and whether most to mourn for the injured or the
injurers, he could not at the moment determine. As to Robert, the
revelation of character which this news imparted, was like the rude
rending of a veil, and the exhibition of deformity beneath. Amid all his
faults and excesses, Mr. Addison had hitherto traced, or fancied he
traced, a noble, generous, affectionate nature, strong and noble enough
to struggle at last through all temptations; but what more ignoble, or
ungenerous than the nature exhibited here. He walked home perplexed and
bewildered, and all the night long tossed about haunted by the forms of
coming misery. Robert and Angela! married without love; with boundless
means to feed his vices, and no attachment at home, no loving influence
or strong respect to restrain him; a downward course, an end of misery.
Strong as his love for Robert were the torturing fears that assailed
him.
Before morning his resolve was taken. He would hasten to London and see
with his own eyes, and decide by his own judgment, if anything could yet
be done to prevent a great evil. He wrote a note to Mr. Vavasour to
apprise him of his departure, simply saying that business called him
away; and was making a few needful arrangements, when another messenger,
sent by Mrs. Vavasour, summoned him to Audley Court, where his presence
was much needed. The blow had fallen by other means.
With an aching heart Mr. Addison prepared to obey the summons. He was
one of those who seem to live but to help and comfort others, but he had
not the calmness of soul such ministers of comfort usually possess. The
sight of sorrow, the sight of the grief of those he loved, no
reflection, no philosophy, no time, no religion had taught him to
endure. It was the business and the happiness of his life to be able to
comfort, and yet there were times, and this day was one, when his very
soul longed for the hour when there would be no more tears to wipe away.
For one of his disposition a time of trial was at hand.
On arriving at Audley Court he was shown into Mr. Vavasour’s study, and
there he found the father and mother alone. The very first glance made
him quail and tremble. Mr. Vavasour was sitting, pale, calm, and stern,
his head leaning back on his chair. It was an awful truth that that
single glance revealed. His heart was broken. The time might be longer,
might be shorter, but the fiat had gone forth, the blow was struck;
there was death in his face.
Mr. Addison quailed as he received the impression, and then hastily
glanced at Mrs. Vavasour, dreading to read a like conviction in her
eyes; but he was in some degree re-assured by her apparent
unconsciousness. Her lids were swollen with tears, but sorrow for her
son and pleading for her son seemed to absorb her.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, stretching out her hand to him. “We
have great need of you.”
“You have heard of Robert?” he said in reply.
“There, take these,” she cried, gathering together some letters that lay
by her husband’s side, “and then give us what hope and comfort you can.”
“There is neither hope nor comfort to be given,” broke out the stern
voice of Mr. Vavasour. “They have passed from my heart for ever. Yes,
take those,” he continued passionately, “and learn what a son we have
cherished in our bosoms.”
One letter was from the same old friend, Mr. Perceval, who, on a former
occasion, had written about Robert’s concerns. It enclosed one from Mr.
Low, Mr. Vavasour’s solicitor.
In this letter Mr. Low informed Mr. Perceval of several particulars
regarding Robert’s conduct, which had come to his knowledge, and asked
his advice about communicating them to Mr. Vavasour. He stated that he
had heard of his arrival in London, and that he was living in obscurity,
moving his lodgings from place to place, and concealing his return from
his acquaintance; that on inquiry, he understood this conduct to be
caused by his having lost large sums of money, and being much harassed
by his debts. The letter went on to say, “The interest I have always
taken in Mr. Robert Vavasour, and my conviction of the truth of what I
have heard, has led me to trouble you on this occasion, though possibly
I might have hesitated to interfere, when not especially called upon to
do so, had it not been that from other circumstances, I believe no time
should be lost in extricating him from his embarrassments.” Mr. Low then
proceeded to inform Mr. Perceval that he had likewise heard, and he
feared with too great truth, that Robert had of late acquired habits of
intemperance, brought on he was convinced by distress of mind, and he
urged upon him, not in the dry style of a solicitor, but as one whose
heart like many others had been warmed and won by Robert’s charms, that
the unfortunate young man should be snatched before it was too late,
from the perilous course on which he had entered.
As Mr. Addison finished this letter he slowly raised his eyes, and
almost started as he met the keen piercing gaze that was bent upon him
by Mr. Vavasour. He understood it well. He felt what word it was whose
shame and disgrace had struck, like a dagger’s point, into his very
heart. Intemperance! That a Vavasour should thus degrade himself to the
level of the beasts that perish.
Without a remark, Mr. Addison turned to the second letter. Mr. Low’s was
dated a week backward. Mr. Perceval’s only two days before. He explained
his delay in forwarding the enclosure by the desire he had felt to make
more particular inquiries before such tidings were sent. Finding that
substantially they were correct, he thought it best to let Mr. Vavasour
know the worst without delay. He added, however, that he understood an
improvement in his habits had of late taken place, owing to a pursuit in
which Robert was at present engaged; a pursuit which, if crowned with
success, would, he hoped, not only place him above his difficulties, but
if all that was said of the lady in question was true, would probably
ensure his domestic happiness, and recover him from the error of his
ways. This fact had, he said, been communicated to him in confidence by
his nephew, and he was not, therefore, at liberty to speak more clearly,
but he trusted that the mere mention of these better hopes would, in a
degree, soothe the pain he was forced to cause.
One word only alleviated the unspeakable sadness Mr. Addison felt in
these tidings; and strange to say it was the very word that seemed to
crush Mr. Vavasour to the earth. Intemperance. What but the mind’s agony
could have driven Robert to a course he abhorred? and if the mind was
capable of suffering so acutely there was the better nature living
still; there was the heart too much opposed to evil, the conscience too
tortured by the sense, of the pain he inflicted, to leave any ground for
despair. As he thus reflected, he remembered Robert’s parting prayer,
and replacing the letters by Mr. Vavasour’s side, he gravely said,
“Robert must not be condemned on hearsay; his own lips must speak. I
will go to him.”
“Bless you for that,” cried Mrs. Vavasour, “and,” she continued, taking
up Mr. Perceval’s letter, and pointing to the paragraph respecting
Robert’s marriage, “prove this false or he will break our hearts.”
“They _are_ broken,” said Mr. Vavasour, sternly. “It is too late.”
“Not so,” was Mr. Addison’s soothing reply. “God accepts repentance, and
man should never say it is too late.”
“There are things God’s mercy pardons that man cannot.”
“Shall man, then, be more just than God?” Mr. Addison asked, solemnly.
Mr. Vavasour clasped his hands in some mute emotion, but whether it was
a vow or prayer could not be guessed.
In speaking with Mrs. Vavasour, Mr. Addison found that with instinctive
dread her thoughts had flown to Angela; and since the tidings might at
any moment, either through direct announcement or common gossip, fall on
her ears, he thought it best, before his departure, to mention what he
had heard at Underwood. Mrs. Vavasour wept bitterly, tears she vainly
struggled to repress, but it was for the poor guilty Robert, not for
Everard, that she wept; and who should say her tears were misplaced. Mr.
Vavasour said not one word, but if a cheek that was already pale as
death could be paler, his became so; and if the rigid sternness of his
brow could admit of increase, his became more hard.
He did not speak during the remainder of the conversation between Mr.
Addison and his wife, neither forbidding nor yet sanctioning the plans
they formed; but when, before he left the room, the question arose
whether Hope should be informed of all that was known and all that was
dreaded, and when Mrs. Vavasour said with tears, “Let us spare her yet;
God may yet shield her innocence from this trial,” he again broke
harshly forth,
“She shall know all. Not for one hour longer shall she waste her heart
upon a....”
Some word of fury was on his lips, but with clasped hands he restrained
himself; and bowing his head, he gently and reverently added, “God have
pity upon us all.”
Even had he deemed it himself advisable, Mr. Addison would not have
attempted to argue with Mr. Vavasour in his present mood. He saw a fixed
determination in his eye, and danger of exciting him if it were
combated; but in truth he saw little to be gained by delay. The bond
between Robert and Hope was already broken, and even should the event
fail to take place, it was not with one of her character that
concealment could be just. He offered himself, therefore, to perform the
task.
He offered himself to spare Mrs. Vavasour the pain of the recital, and
to spare Hope the agony of Mr. Vavasour’s harsher words. But it was a
task of peculiar difficulty. He had needed no confession to tell him
that a change had come over the affection which subsisted between Hope
and Robert. He had seen Robert more than once struggling with his
feelings, and he had seen in Hope’s eyes the dawn of something, which,
if of earth, had no stain of earthliness about it. He had not needed
what yet he had received, Mrs. Vavasour’s thankful assurance that such
was the case. But though he knew, he had felt instinctively that the tie
between them was too fragile to bear a touch; and though adviser, guide,
and comforter, this touch which was to break, was the first that had
ever ventured near the sacredness of her affection.
Hope was at work in her sitting room. She looked up as he entered, and
fixing an earnest gaze on his face, saw, or thought she saw, what
brought him; she perceived that the long expected hour was come, when
she must walk with Robert through a dark valley; and with one sinking
and trembling of her heart, she was prepared to meet it. For what else
he had to tell little indeed was she prepared.
He came to her side and forced her to be seated, and then stooping
tenderly over her, he put the letters into her hand, saying only as he
did so, “There is much to grieve us all; but there are some things which
more especially concern _you_. Dear Miss Linton be prepared,” and he
gave her hand one of those agitated grasps, which tell so much of
sympathy.
But even then, Hope was not prepared, nor even when she had perused the
letter, did the truth it contained flash on her mind. It was a glance at
Mr. Addison, and a second perusal that brought conviction, and then she
slowly laid it down, and her head bent lower, and a flush of crimson
stole over her cheek, and neck, and brow.
To a character like Hope’s, the sensations of such a moment had an added
and unspeakable bitterness; for they brought not sorrow only, but
self-knowledge. She had lived from childhood upwards, a life most like
an angel’s, her heart in Heaven, while her business was on earth;
nothing had yet taught her that she too was a child of Adam, compassed
about with earthly passions, and earthly hopes and fears. It was the
iron of the chain entering into her soul, that brought her to feel the
links that bound her.
Mr. Addison waited long, and then gently laying his hand on her bended
head, said, “God bless you and help you. I know you have need of help.”
She gave him her hand without looking up or speaking, and he held it
while he told her as briefly as was possible, what more was needful, and
what more she might wish to know. When he had done, perceiving plainly
that at that moment no earthly comforter could speak peace to her
troubled spirit, he again murmured his soft “God bless you,” and left
her to solitude.
Her first act was a singular one; but it was one which showed how to
her thoughtful nature outward forms were imbued with life. She loosened
from her neck a chain and locket, which Robert had given her the evening
before he left home for college; a token of affection and remembrance
which since then had hung there night and day, loved and cherished; she
held it for a moment and looked at it with an intense gaze, then slowly
crossed the room, folded it in paper, and put it carefully by. When this
was done, she threw herself on her knees, and buried her face in her
hands; not for prayer, not for thought, not for confession, but to throw
under the protection of God, thoughts and emotions, whose startling
violence she knew not how to put into words, and thus mutely to express
her resignation of herself to whatever might befall her.
And innocence is strong
And an entire simplicity of mind
A thing most sacred in the eye of Heaven.
Gradually the selfishness of her grief passed by, and reproaching
herself, for so long forgetting a parent’s sorrow, she was springing up
to go in search of her aunt, when she was prevented by Mrs. Vavasour’s
entrance.
She was much agitated, and throwing her arms round Hope’s neck, she wept
bitterly. Those tears she had so desired to conceal from her husband
flowed here without restraint; and the reproaches against Robert, which
she would have died before she had uttered in his presence, fell fast
from her lips in the presence of her he had injured. Mrs. Vavasour was
very human, and even years of self-restraint had failed to overcome the
impetuosity of her feelings.
It was Hope who recalled her to herself. “Dear Aunt Joan,” she said,
sadly, “who will speak for Robert, if you give him up?”
“Ah! who indeed,” she replied, composing herself with a pang of
self-reproach. “But it is for your sake, Hope. When I think of you, even
I can hardly forgive.”
Hope stood by her side with downcast eyes, and a colour coming and
going as rapidly as Angela’s might have done. In many respects human
beings strangely differ one from the other, but some things all feel
alike. However bravely, or however holily borne, the strongest or the
most saintlike know what it is to be forsaken or forgotten. At last she
raised her eyes and said with grave composure. “I think it is very
possible that I may have thought more of Robert’s words than I ought to
have done, or if not that,” for the vividness of those words, and that
scene, flashed before her to check the supposition “that he himself was
too much excited to know all he said, or to remember it as I have
remembered. But be this as it may, dear Aunt Joan, it is not for _us_ to
forsake him. He is sorely tempted, but he will not be lost. He has a
good soul, and that cannot be lost.” She clasped her hands with
passionate fervour, as she spoke her intense conviction regarding him.
“Will you, indeed, never forsake him or cease to pray for him, Hope?”
her aunt asked, laying her hand on her arm, and looking anxiously in her
face.
Hope turned away her eyes, for that question brought the conviction
hitherto unrealized, that he would be her charge no longer; that another
might stand nearer to him than she had ever yet done or ever
henceforward could do. It was a conviction of such piercing anguish that
it kept her for a moment silent; but when she answered, it was in the
same grave but tranquil manner in which for his sake she had spoken
before. “I think Robert should never know that there has been a change.
A few months need not wipe out whole years of life. What I have been,
all but a few thoughts, I think I may still be. And now, dear Aunt Joan,
think of me no more, let us think, and hope, and pray for him.”
Mrs. Vavasour fondly kissed her, and her request was obeyed. Except
from their inner hearts, that portion of their grief seemed to be swept
away.
Mr. Vavasour did not even mention Robert’s name again. Mr. Low came down
from London at his summons, and with him he entered fully into the
subject, hearing from him all that could be told, and entering with him
into arrangements for the future. But to his wife and Hope he was
absolutely dumb.
Mrs. Vavasour made no attempt to break his silence. His harsh speeches
wrung her heart, and, for the first time, she had no excuses to bring
forward. Her passionate love for her son was in no degree shaken, but
she recoiled from the past, and trembled for the future, and dared not
palliate, and dared not hope.
For three days Hope was also silent. She too shrank from his harsh
words, and feared lest the thoughts connected with _her_, should provoke
them anew. But after three days she could bear this silence no longer.
There was a fixed look in his face which made her tremble as she watched
it, a look almost as if he were cursing Robert in his heart.
On the third day she went to him and put her arms round his neck, and
said, “Uncle Richard, you have not forgiven Robert. I see in your face
that you do not forgive. You must. Oh! Uncle Richard, it is a fearful
thing not to forgive.”
He looked at her intently, and remained for a time,--it seemed to her
like many minutes,--in profound silence and reflection. Hope
waited--watching and hoping to see a softening in his countenance; but
in vain. There was no change there.
At last he spoke gravely and solemnly. “I was examining myself, my
child. I would not lightly say that I did forgive. But I can say it now.
I do forgive him.” He paused, then suddenly seizing both her hands,
continued with violent agitation, “And Hope, my child, if it should be
so ordained that I see Robert no more, let him know this; let him never
doubt it; _I forgive him_. He has the full forgiveness of the father
whose heart he has broken, as I hope God will forgive me.” He dropped
her hands, and covered his face for an instant with his own; but after
that instant was calm and rigid as before.
Hope kissed his brow, and softly thanked him.
As she was moving away he caught her hand once more and said, “Not till
I am _dead_, Hope, not till I am dead.”
“Are you ill, dear Uncle Richard--do you feel ill?” she cried, hanging
tearfully over him.
“My heart is broken,” he said; “God’s will be done.” And he waved his
hand as if desirous to be left to himself.