Oh! but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony;
When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
_King Richard the Second._
Mr. Addison found Mrs. Vavasour in a state of mind the most painful
which can be conceived. Her whole soul too evidently in revolt and
rebellion against him, to whom she had been united in thought and
feeling, and unto whom her will had been (unless on this same subject),
in perfect submission for years; and this too in the mourning days of
her irreparable loss. Never yet had he found himself so incapable of
ministering consolation. She would not speak to him, because she dared
not. Thoughts were within, terrible enough to feel, but which she would
have died sooner than have spoken; and these thoughts he read on her
contracted brow and in her tortured lips. He felt for her with intensity
of sympathy, and yet he perceived that she dreaded to hear or to receive
his sympathy, lest he or she should seem to cast in words, that blame on
the departed, which her rebellious soul, without her will to restrain
it, was already casting.
On two subjects only he touched. He first observed, that since Robert’s
forgiveness had been so fully spoken, so fully and freely given both in
word and deed, she must not look on her husband’s decision in the light
of a curse. It was the act of a clear and sane judgment evidently
intended for Robert’s good, and being without a trace of bitterness of
spirit, should in a like spirit be received. His second suggestion was
in the form of a hope earnestly expressed, that it would prove for
Robert’s welfare in the end.
The first suggestion was accepted. Mrs. Vavasour said nothing, but he
saw that it did reach her heart, and might in time give comfort. But at
the second, her soul rose up in revolt again. In the contracted brow, as
plain as words could speak, he read this answer--“Injustice cannot bring
forth good.”
Mr. Addison had very strong opinions regarding the _times_ to speak.
Many might have thought that he neglected his duty, when on constantly
recurring occasions he was silent, instead of setting forth plain
truths, or delivering necessary admonitions. But long observation had
taught him, that to speak words for which the heart is not prepared, is
to waste them in more senses than one; not only making them fall
profitless, but detracting from their value for a future occasion.
He said nothing therefore at this time to Mrs. Vavasour in the way of
warning, or even of counsel; but after speaking such few words as he
could of comfort and sympathy, he offered to read to her and Hope the
Evening Service; trusting to the effects of familiar words and prayers
to soothe her, and to such chance exhortations as might be scattered in
the teaching of the day, to warn or encourage her.
When this was done and he wished her good night, he observed in a
meaning voice that he was going to look for “poor Everard.”
She winced at the very name as he had expected would be the case, and
having endeavoured by one pitiful epithet to turn the current of her
thoughts, he thought it best to attempt no more.
He left her therefore to herself, and departed on his search.
When he reached Everard’s room he found the door locked, and to the two
knockings by which he requested leave to enter, no answer was
vouchsafed. Before he reached the door he had plainly heard his
footsteps pacing up and down, but after the first announcement of his
presence a perfect stillness succeeded.
“You must let me in, Everard,” he said at last, with something of
authority in his voice. “I am come to speak to you.”
There was another minute’s demur, but it ended by the door being flung
open with violence, and Mr. Addison entered.
Everard was looking nearly wild. His hair disordered and his eyes
bloodshot, as if tears of passion and fierce rage had scorched them. He
said nothing, and Mr. Addison closed the door and took his seat in
silence.
At last he looked seriously in his face and said, “When last I came to
you in this room, Everard, do you remember a warning I gave you. The
time is already come, temptations and cares are oppressing you. Have
you sought the strength you will so greatly need?”
“Then you knew of this,” Everard cried, fiercely. “I guessed as much.
Mr. Addison, how did you dare....”
“Everard!” he said, warningly.
“I will be answered,” he continued passionately. “_Did you know of
this?_ I have a right to ask, and I will not be silent till I have a
reply.”
“You shall know what you please when you are fit to be spoken to,” was
the grave answer. “Recover yourself, Everard. Is it for a man in the
full possession of his reason to act like a child or a madman. Compose
yourself. For your father’s sake, to whom such madness was abhorrent,
control your passions.”
Words so stern were uncommon with Mr. Addison; the assumption of an
authoritative manner very new; but more than once of late, he had
observed that Everard had loosened the reins of his self-controul; and
he knew that when loosened after years of restraint, there is great
danger of a man’s starting aside like a broken bow.
A torrent of blood flew to Everard’s temples; but in the same moment
tears sprang into his eyes, and he was conquered.
“You are very severe, Mr. Addison,” he said, coming and leaning against
the window in which he was sitting; “but, perhaps, you are just. Now say
what you will, I can bear it.”
“Dear Everard, I did not come with the intention of being severe. I came
in the hope of bringing you the help you might need. If I was severe, it
is because I feel you need all your reason and all your powers to guide
you in this time of difficulty and trial, and it grieved me to see you
act unworthily of yourself.”
“Do you not feel for me?” Everard asked, in tones of intense misery.
“I do feel for you. But it becomes a man to act like a man, and no
reasonable man allows his passion to lord it over him. Now I have done.
Tell me, Everard, what do you wish to know?”
“Was this done with your knowledge? If it was, oh! Mr. Addison, forgive
me, but it was most unworthy of you. In _him_, I can ... I can _pity_ it
... but in _you_....”
“Now hear me, Everard. I fully understand all you would say, but hear me
before you condemn. I did know it, under these circumstances. When, a
few hours before his death, your dear father made a confession to me,
embracing all the events of his life, he said he would not withhold from
me the knowledge of one circumstance which possibly I might blame. When
he told me what he had done, I owned that my opinion was against his
decision. I said that though in one sense just, yet that there was a
seeming injustice which rarely was capable of bringing forth good. He
answered me that I must forgive him if my words could not induce him to
change his resolution. He told me that it was not a decision formed in
one mad moment; but that in the event of certain circumstances occurring
which did occur, it had been a course resolved upon months before, with
prayer, with reflection, and as in the sight of God.
“I then examined into his state of mind. I desired him most seriously to
look into his own heart, and to see if there was one rankling feeling of
bitterness towards Robert. I spoke, Everard, as they should speak who
speak for eternity; and I am bound to tell you that I found no ill will,
no vengeance there. He spoke of Robert with intense affection; and
expressed his hopes, fond and fervent, and his conviction also, that the
day would arrive when he would come to himself, and redeem all that was
passed.
“He then spoke of his motives, and began by saying, that he could not,
in his conscience, leave the inheritance of his fathers, to be delivered
up, as he well knew would be the case, into the hands of profligates.
‘By years of self-denial,’ he said, ‘I have made it doubly my own, and
it is my will that it should be transmitted as a solemn trust to the son
who has proved himself worthy of his name.’
“I interrupted him here and said that I had sometimes feared the love of
his name, and jealousy of its honour, held a place too nearly idolatrous
in his heart. He looked at me fixedly, and remained for some minutes in
profound thought. At last he replied that he acknowledged such had been
the case, and he begged of me, during the remaining hours of his life,
to pray for him that that stain might be washed away; but, he added,
that though he would not say his motives were perfectly pure from that
blemish, yet, that as far as he could read his heart, that was not the
motive that influenced him. He then entered minutely into Robert’s
character--pointed out his good qualities and his great weaknesses, and
ended by declaring his conviction, that, humanly speaking, there was no
salvation for him but in the course he had taken.
“I might have said more, Everard, but I did not; there is sometimes an
intuition in the dying more pure and clear than the living have. I
searched his mind and heart; I saw it (so far as man can tell) so
cleansed from earthly stain as to need but the passage hence, to make it
fit for Heaven; and I could not--I did not dare to withstand farther,
what might be an inspiration from the Spirit of God. Such was my part in
this matter, Everard. Can you forgive me for it?”
Everard only answered by a sigh that seemed to spring from the depths of
his heart.
There was a long silence. Mr. Addison broke it at length with the simple
enquiry, “Shall you accept your father’s will, Everard?”
Everard covered his face with his hands.
“It was a hard thing to lay on a man,” he cried, with returning passion.
“Mr. Addison, leave me to myself; I have not thought--I cannot think.
Oh! my father, my father, could you but have known the agony you would
cause me!”
“He did know, Everard, I doubt not. He understood you too well not to
know it; but he knew also that you were his son, able to endure and
conquer agony if duty calls. I am not saying where your duty lies; I do
but speak of what he felt regarding you. As to your duty, in such a case
as this, every man must decide for himself. Think and pray, and then
decide, and, whatever it be, act bravely, and without passion.”
“Leave me to myself, Mr. Addison,” Everard repeated, as if he scarcely
heard what he said. “Thank you for coming, thank you for your stern
words; pray that I may do right, but leave me to myself. I will try to
do my duty if I could but tell what it is. Oh! mother, mother, how shall
I ever look in your face again!”
In obedience to his repeated and agitated request to be left alone, Mr.
Addison departed. He saw plainly that the decision must be worked out in
Everard’s own mind, and that he did not even desire to know what
opinions were held by others on the subject.
But solitude brought no clearness to Everard’s intellect, no light over
the chaos of his thoughts. If for a moment one conclusion was formed, if
the glaring injustice to Robert assumed colours so vivid, that no
obedience, no feeling, no promise, could stand before it, the very next
he saw his father’s dying face, the peace of his reliance upon him; he
heard his last and solemn enquiry, “Would his son be guided by his
will,” and all was overthrown. And then the case was reversed. Obedience
prevailed; and then this resolution, in turn, was shaken to its depths
by vivid images of Robert and his rights, and his mother’s sufferings,
and the already gnawing sting of hate that must be _his_ portion.
He drew back shuddering, and, in darkness and bewilderment, the
wearying process began once more.
In the tumult of such opposing reflections, time became as nothing, and
he was still pacing his room--now languidly, now impetuously, when he
was startled by the sound of the dinner-bell.
The familiar notice brought strangely to his remembrance the thoughts of
the morning--his own bitter spirit, his dread of seeing Robert in his
father’s place, and with those thoughts rushed in a whole host of other
thoughts--of jealousies connected with Robert, of imaginings of Robert’s
future, of fears, hopes, terrors, till, in very exhaustion, unable to
face the mass of fancies that assailed him, or to see one guiding light
in the feverish darkness around, he threw himself on his bed, and
determined to remain undisturbed for the night.
Something, as he lay down, recalled to his memory the tenderness of Mr.
Addison’s face, when he bent over him on the day of his father’s death;
and with the thought of Mr. Addison came the recollection of his grave
words on the indulgence of passion. With a child’s docility, he rose up
again, and though with an aching head and weary spirit, he resolved to
go down.
It was too late to dress, but he washed his face, and smoothed his hair,
and endeavoured to still his throbbing pulses; and while yet as far from
decision as ever, left his room to join his brother and Hope.
On the stairs Robert overtook him, and they went down together. Nothing
was said at first, but, as they crossed the lower corridor, Robert
observed, in his usual tone, “We will go to my mother’s dressing-room. I
told her this morning that if she would consent to dine with us, we
would dine in the ante-room, and have no one in but Harrison. I gave
orders accordingly, and I suppose nobody has thought of making a
change.”
Robert’s request had been mistaken. It was too early an attempt to
rouse Mrs. Vavasour from her trance of grief; but it had been so fondly
and lovingly urged, that, unable to resist him, she had permitted him to
arrange what he desired. Since then he had not thought of it, and she,
for his sake, had been unwilling to make a change.
If weighed down beneath a load of crime, Everard could scarcely have
felt a heavier oppression of shame and guilt than he did on entering his
mother’s room. She never raised her eyes; and, during the few moments of
waiting that followed, while Robert sat beside her and kissed her, he
stood stiff, stern, and immoveable, like a culprit before her.
Hope gave a slight push to a chair, as if to desire him to sit down--a
simple movement, and yet, in the feeling towards him which it exhibited,
coming like a drop of cold water in the desert. It was the only comfort
that came to him that miserable night.
When dinner was ready, Robert gave his arm to his mother, and tenderly
led her into the room where it was prepared. He was about to sit down at
the head of the table, when a recollection suddenly came over him, and,
colouring crimson, he drew back after seating his mother, and
hesitatingly made a step towards Everard; but the look of inexpressible
anguish that met his glance, drove him back; and though with a still
higher colour he sat down.
The wish for Mrs. Vavasour’s presence had been, as was said, mistaken
tenderness; so Robert acknowledged during the wretched half-hour that
followed. He and Hope once or twice attempted to speak; but their words,
few and faint, were the only ones. Mrs. Vavasour never raised her eyes,
never glanced towards Everard; while from her, in the longing for one
look of pity, _his_ eyes never wandered.
When the time of endurance came to an end, Mrs. Vavasour rose, and
faintly saying she would go to bed, wished them good-night.
Robert fondly kissed her, and thanked her for coming amongst them; and
then Everard approached with an effort, and hoarsely said, “Good-night,
mother.”
She paused as she was turning away, leaning on Hope--paused for him to
kiss her; but, except the pause, there was nothing inviting in her
manner, and he dared not speak. The calm, cold kiss was given, and she
went on.
Hope came for a short time to make tea for her cousins, and when she
left them they remained alone and undisturbed; but no word on either
side was said. Robert took up a book, and Everard followed his
example--the former not even attempting to read, the latter attempting
it that the torment of thought which rolled round and round within him,
as in the mind of a maniac, might, for a moment, be stayed--but, in
vain; and so another hour passed.
Everard then threw down his book, and left the room. On his departure,
Robert threw down his, and leaning his head against the chimney-piece,
remained there in abstraction, or meditation, far into the night.