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                           THE WAYS OF LIFE

                              TWO STORIES

                                  BY

                             MRS. OLIPHANT

          “_We have wrought no new deliverance in the earth_”

                          G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
                           NEW YORK & LONDON
                        The Knickerbocker Press
                                 1897

                            COPYRIGHT, 1897
                                  BY
                          G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS


                   The Knickerbocker Press, New York




CONTENTS.


                                                PAGE

A PREFACE: ON THE EBB TIDE                         7

MR. SANDFORD                                      21

THE WONDERFUL HISTORY OF MR. ROBERT DALYELL      149





THE WAYS OF LIFE.




A PREFACE.

ON THE EBB TIDE.


I do not pretend to say that the two stories included in this volume are
conscious or intentional studies of the phase of human experience which
I can describe in no other way than by calling it the ebb, in
contradistinction to that tide in the affairs of men which we all know
is, to those who can identify and seize it, the great turning-point of
life, and leads on to fortune. But they were at least produced under the
influence of the strange discovery which a man makes when he finds
himself carried away by the retiring waters, no longer coming in upon
the top of the wave, but going out. This does not necessarily mean the
decline of life, the approach of age, or any natural crisis, but
something more poignant--the wonderful and overwhelming revelation
which one time or other comes to most people, that their career,
whatever it may have been, has come to a stop: that such successes as
they may have achieved are over, and that henceforward they must
accustom themselves to the thought of going out with the tide. It is a
very startling discovery to one who has perhaps been going with a
tolerably full sail, without any consciousness of weakened energies or
failing power; and it usually is as sudden as it is strange, a thing
unforeseen by the sufferer himself, though probably other people have
already found it out, and traced the steps of its approach. Writers of
fiction, and those whose work it is to realise and exhibit, as far as in
them lies, the vicissitudes and alterations of life, are more usually
employed in illustrating the advance of that tide--in showing how it is
caught or lost, and with what an impetus, and what accompaniments it
flings itself higher and higher up upon the beach, with the sunshine
triumphant in the whirl of the big wave as it turns over and breaks into
foam, and the flood claps its hands with a rejoicing noise. But yet the
ebb has its poetry, too; the colours are more sombre, the sentiment is
different. The flood which in its rise seemed almost individual,
pervaded by something like conscious life of force and pleasure, becomes
like an abstract relentless fate when it pours back into the deep gulf
of a sea of forgetfulness, with a rush of whitened pebbles dragged from
the beach, or a long expanse of uncovered sands left bare, studded with
slippery fragments of rock and the bones of shipwrecked boats. These are
no more than symbols of the rising and falling again of human feeling,
which, in all its phases, is of the highest interest to those who
recognise, even in its imaginary developments, a shadow of their own.

The moment when we first perceive that our individual tide has turned is
one which few persons will find it possible to forget. We look on with a
piteous surprise to see our little triumphs, our not-little hopes, the
future we had still believed in, the past in which we thought our name
and fame would still be to the good, whatever happened, all floating out
to sea to be lost there, out of sight of men. In the morning all might
seem as sure to go on for ever--that is, for our time, which means the
same thing--as the sky over us, or the earth beneath our feet; but
before evening there was a different story, and the tide was in full
retreat, carrying with it both convictions of the past and hope in the
future, not only our little laurels, all tossed and withered, and our
little projects, but also the very heart of exertion, our confidence in
ourselves and providence. The discovery comes in many different ways--in
the unresponsive silence which greets an orator who once was interrupted
by perpetual cheers, in the publishing of a book which drops and is
never heard of more, or, as in the present case, the unsold pictures:
and in the changed accent with which the fickle public pronounces a once
favoured name.

There are some who salute this discovery with outcries of indignation
and refusal to believe. They think, like the French, that they are
betrayed, or, like many of us, that an enemy has done this: a malignant
critic perhaps, an ill-disposed publisher or dealer: and save their own
pride by putting forth explanations, and persuading themselves, if
nobody else, that the thing is temporary and an accident, or else that
it is due to cruel fate, and the machinations of evil-hearted men. But
when, amid the gifts of the artist, be they small or great, he happens
to retain the clearer reason, the common-sense of ordinary intelligence,
it is more difficult to take refuge in such self-deceptions, merciful
expedients of Nature as they may be to blind us to our own misfortunes.
The reasonable man has the worst of it in such cases. It is less
possible for him to believe in a mysterious fate or in malign
influences. He is obliged to allow to himself that the going out of the
tide is as natural as its coming in, and that he is no way exempted from
the operation of those laws which affect human reputation and comfort as
much as the rising and the falling affect the winds and the seas.

These problems of the common life, though they are perhaps less
cheerful, are surely as fit subjects for fiction as are the easier
difficulties of youth. It is common to say that all the stories have
been told and every complication exhausted, so that we can do nothing
but repeat the old themes over again, with such variety of treatment as
our halting genius can suggest. Romance itself, they say, is gone, which
is an assertion strenuously contradicted by the most powerful of our
young writers, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who replies to it in very energetic
tones, that, Here is a steam-engine, which is Romance incarnate, the
great poetry of form and purpose, a creation, as distinct as Hamlet or
Lear, a big, dutiful, but exigent giant which a touch can turn into a
destroyer, but loving guidance into the most useful servant and friend
of man. The tramp of its mighty feet across the wastes of the sea,
bringing the man home to his wife, the son to his mother, is poetry, is
joy to this eager spirit. I am disposed in moderation to accept the
belief of the young author who has a most broad and manful perception of
life as something more than love-making, and to acknowledge the
mysterious monstrous thing which he makes heroic. To show in his
masterful way how every consenting part of the big machine as it clanks
on with large unwieldy steps, so many beats to a minute, sounds a note
in the symphony of life and service, a voice in the great strain of song
which rises from earth to heaven, is more worthy than all the unsavoury
romances of all the decadents. Would not St. Francis, had he lived to
see it, have called to Brother Iron and Brother Steel, strong henchmen
of God, and Sister Steam, with her wreaths of snow, though her voice be
not sweet, to join the song of the Creatures in honour of the Maker, as
he called upon fire and water in his famous hymn? or that older minstrel
in the ancient ages, to whom “snow and vapour, wind and storms
fulfilling His word,” were already members of the great choir? It must
be added, however, when all is said, that it is the grimy engineer
behind watching every valve and guiding every stroke who makes the
romance of the machine, as interesting in his way as Romeo, who, though
he is the perennial hero, and attracts the greatest general interest, is
not so much of a man.

I have often felt while sick or sorry, and craving a little rational
entertainment and distraction--which, in my opinion, it is one of the
highest aims of the novelist to supply--that the everlasting treatment
of the primary problem of youth, as if there was no other in the world,
was at once fatiguing to the reader and injudicious on the part of the
writer. When we want to be taken out of ourselves by the lively
presentment of other people’s difficulties and troubles, it is tiresome
to be always turned back to the disappointments or the successes of
eighteen, or--in deference to the different standard of age held to be
interesting by this generation--let us say five-and-twenty. I do not in
the least deny the great advantages of that episode in life for
treatment in fiction. It is almost the only episode which comes to a
distinct, while it may be, at the same time, a cheerful, end; and its
popularity is obvious: and it is a subject which women, who form the
bulk of readers of fiction, are rarely tired of; all of which points are
important. The elder writers made it the chief thread in the web of
fancy, but surrounded the young people with plenty of fathers and
mothers, neighbours and servants, doctors, clergymen, lawyers, etc., and
all the paraphernalia of common life. But I weary of the two by
themselves, or almost by themselves, as happens so often; and if the
artifices, with which we are so familiar, by which they are brought
together, are fatiguing, how much more so are those uglier artifices by
which, being linked together, they are torn asunder again, and a fierce
duel of what is called passion is set before us against the lurid skies
as the chief object of interest in the world? Novelists make a great
moan when they are hindered in the working out of such subjects, and cry
loudly to heaven and earth against the limited intelligences which
object to them, the British matron, the young person, and so forth. It
seems to me that they would be more reasonable if they complained of the
monotonous demand for a love-story which crushes out of court all the
rest of life--so infinite in variety, so full of complication, so
humorous, so mysterious, so natural and true.

I have wondered often whether Macaulay and Darwin, and such great men,
whom it is the pride of the novel writer to quote as finding their
recreation in novels, were not of my opinion; though it is sadly
disconcerting to find from his own account that all Mr. Darwin wanted
was a story which ended happily--a judgment which is humbling to one’s
pride in a reader of whom one was so much inclined to boast. So do I
like a story which ends happily. And since the public is fond of such
small revelations, I may here confess that I have often begun a story
with the determination to be high-minded--to treat my young lovers
without indulgence, and either kill them or part them in deference to
the rules of Art. But my heart has generally failed me, and I have
rarely found courage to do them any harm. They will have plenty of
trouble in the world, one knows--why should one cross them in the
beginning of their career?

These, however, are questions of a lighter mood than the one with which
I began, and a manifest digression from that theme. The two stories
which follow treat not of the joy and pride of life, but of those so
often unforeseen misfortunes and accidents which shape it towards its
end. Life appears under a very different aspect to the man who has felt
the turn of the tide. Probably the discovery has been quite sudden,
startling, and, so far as he knows, private to himself. His friends all
the time may go on hailing him as poet, creator--all manner of fine
things. If he discloses his discovery to them, he is met by reproaches
for his dejection, his distrust and gloomy views; the compliments which
he knows so well and believes so little are heaped again upon him; he is
out of health, out of spirits, overworked, they say, in want of rest; a
few weeks leisure and repose, and he will be himself again--as if it
were a mood or a freak of temper, and not a fact staring him in the
face. But usually he is too much stunned to speak. He is not dying, or
like to die, though his career has come or is coming to an end. It would
be far more appropriate, far more dramatic if he were; but death is
illogical, and will seldom come at the moment when it is wanted, when it
would most appropriately solve the problem of what is to be done
after?--which becomes the most pressing, the most necessary of
questions. Why did not Napoleon die at Waterloo? He lived to add a
pitiful postscript to his existence, to accumulate all kinds of squalid
miseries about his end, instead of the dramatic and clear-cut conclusion
which he might have attained by a merciful bullet or the thrust of a
bayonet. And how well it would be to end thus when we have discovered
that our day is over! But so far from that, the man has to go on, as if
nothing had happened, “in a cheerful despair,” as I have read in a
note-book--as if to-day were as yesterday, or perhaps more abundant.

    “We poets in our youth, begin in gladness,
     But after comes in the end despondency and madness,”

says Wordsworth. “We have wrought no deliverance in the earth,” says
with profounder meaning a much older poet. A man in such straits may
sometimes save himself as Hamlet would have done, with a bare bodkin,
had not the thought of that something after death which might be worse
even than present calamity deterred him; but if he is of other mettle
and cannot run away, or leave his post save at the lawful summons, the
question, What he is to do? is overwhelming. No hope of being carried to
any island valley of Avillion by stately queens in that boat which is
going out with the tide. And no rebellion against fate will do him the
slightest service. He has to hold his footing somehow--but how?

I confess that I have not had the courage to follow this question, in
either of the cases treated here, to such depths of human discomfiture
as may have been, or may yet be. A greater artist might have done so,
and led the defeated man through all the depths of humiliation and
dismay; but my hand is not strong or firm enough to trace out to the
bounds of the catastrophe the last possibilities of the broken career.
What in the jargon of the age is called the psychological moment is
that in which the first discovery is made, and the startled victim
suddenly perceives what has happened to him, and feels in every plank of
his boat the downward drag of the ebb tide, and looks about him wildly
to see if there is anything he can lay hold of to arrest it, any
deliverance or any escape. This is the case of Mr. Sandford, the hero of
the first of the following tales: and of many others who are not
favoured by so speedy and so complete an answer to this bewildering
problem of life.

The other story is different; for Robert Dalyell, the subject of that,
has laid his plans arbitrarily to escape out of it, doing what seems to
him the best he can for those who belonged to him. And here again there
is much more to say than has been said; for the condition of the man who
blots himself out of life without dying, and accepts a kind of moral
annihilation while yet all the sources of life are warm within him,
might well afford us one of the most tragic chapters of human history.
But I have shrunk from those darker colours with a compunction for him
whom I have made to suffer, which is quite fantastical and out of
reason, but yet true. To have brought him into the world for the mere
purpose of exhibiting his torments seems bad enough without searching
into the depths of them, and betraying those secrets which he himself
accepts with a robust commonplace of endurance as the natural
consequences of the step he has taken.

I may add here that the circumstances of this latter story, which a just
but severe writer has upbraided me with taking from real life, are
indeed, so far as the central incident goes, facts in a family history,
but facts of which I know neither the date nor the personages involved,
all of whom are purely imaginary, as are most of the consequences that
follow, at least so far as is known to me.

The reader, I hope, will forgive a writer very little given to
explanations, or to any personal appearance, for these prefatory words.

M. O. W. O.




MR. SANDFORD.




CHAPTER I.


He was a man approaching sixty, but in perfect health, and with no
painful physical reminders that he had already accomplished the greater
part of life’s journey. He was a successful man, who had attained at a
comparatively early age the heights of his profession, and gained a name
for himself. No painter in England was better or more favourably known.
He had never been emphatically the fashion, or made one of those great
“hits” which are far from being invariably any test of genius; but his
pictures had always been looked for with pleasure, and attracted a large
and very even share of popular approbation. From year to year, for what
was really a very long time, though in his good health and cheerful
occupation the progress of time had never forced itself upon him unduly,
he had gone on doing very well, getting both praise and pudding--good
prices, constant commissions, and a great deal of agreeable applause. A
course of gentle uninterrupted success of this description has a
curiously tranquillising effect upon the mind. It did not seem to Mr.
Sandford, or his wife, or any of his belongings, that it could ever
fail. His income was more like an official income, coming in at slightly
irregular intervals, and with variations of amount, but wonderfully
equal at the year’s end, than the precarious revenues of an artist. And
this fact lulled him into security in respect to his pecuniary means. He
had a very pleasant, ample, agreeable life--a pretty and comfortable
house, full of desirable things; a pleasant, gay, not very profitable,
but pleasant family; and the agreeable atmosphere of applause and public
interest which gave a touch of perfection to all the other good things.
He had the consciousness of being pointed out in every assembly as
somebody worth looking at: “That’s Sandford, you know, the painter.” He
did not dislike it himself, and Mrs. Sandford liked it very much.
Altogether it would have been difficult to find a more pleasant and
delightful career.

His wife had been the truest companion and helpmeet of all his early
life. She had made their small means do in the beginning when money was
not plentiful. She had managed to do him credit in all the many
appearances in society which a rising painter finds to his advantage,
while still spending very little on herself or her dress. She had kept
all going, and saved him from a thousand anxieties and cares. She had
sat to him when models proved expensive so often that it was a common
joke to say that some reflection of Mrs. Sandford’s face was in all his
pictures, from Joan of Arc to Queen Elizabeth. Now that the children
were grown up, perhaps the parents were a little less together than of
old. She had her daughters to look after, who were asked out a great
deal, and very anxious to be fashionable and to keep up with their fine
friends. The two grown-up girls were both pretty, animated, and pleasant
creatures, full of the chatter of society, yet likewise full of better
things. There were also two grown-up sons: one a young barrister,
briefless, and fond of society too; the other one of those agreeable
do-nothings who are more prevalent nowadays than ever before, a very
clever fellow, who had just not succeeded as he ought at the University
or elsewhere, but had plenty of brains for anything, and only wanted the
opportunity to distinguish himself. They were all full of faculty, both
boys and girls, but all took a good deal out of the family stores
without bringing anything in. Ever since these children grew up the
family life had been on a very easy, ample scale. There was never any
appearance of want of money, nor was the question ever discussed with
the young ones, who had really no way of knowing that there was anything
precarious in that well-established family income which provided them
with everything they could desire. Sometimes, indeed, Mrs. Sandford
would shake her head and declare that she “could not afford” some
particular luxury. “Oh, nonsense, mamma!” the girls would say, while
Harry would add, “That’s mother’s _rôle_, we all know. If she did not
say so she would not be acting up to her part.” They took it in this
way, with the same, or perhaps even a greater composure than if Mr.
Sandford’s revenues had been drawn from the three per cents.

It was only after this position had been attained that any anxieties
arose. At first it had seemed quite certain that Jack would speedily
distinguish himself at the bar, and become Lord Chancellor in course of
time; and that something would turn up for Harry--most likely a
Government appointment, which so well known a man as his father had a
right to expect. And Mrs. Sandford, with a sigh, had looked forward with
certainty to the early marriage of her girls. But some years had now
passed since Ada, who was the youngest, had been introduced, and as yet
nothing of that kind had happened. Harry was pleasantly about the world,
a great help in accompanying his sisters when Mrs. Sandford did not want
to go out, but no appointment had fallen in his way; and the briefs
which Jack had procured were very few and very trifling. Things went on
quite pleasantly all the same. The young people enjoyed themselves very
much--they were asked everywhere. Lizzie, who had a beautiful voice, was
an acquisition wherever she went, and helped her sister and her
brothers, who could all make themselves agreeable. The life of the
household flowed on in the pleasantest way imaginable; everything was
bright, delightful, easy. Mrs. Sandford was so good a manager that all
domestic arrangements went as on velvet. She was never put out if two or
three people appeared unexpectedly to lunch. An impromptu dinner party
even, though it might disturb cook, never disturbed mamma. There was no
extravagance, but everything delightfully liberal and full. The first
vague uneasiness that crept into the atmosphere was about the boys. It
was Mrs. Sandford herself who began this. “Did you speak to Lord Okeham
about Harry?” she said to her husband one day, when she had been
particularly elated by the appearance of that nobleman at her tea-table.
He had come to look at a picture, and he was very willing afterwards, it
appeared, to come into the drawing-room to tea.

“How could I? I scarcely know him. It is difficult enough to ask a
friend--but a man I have only seen twice----”

“Your money or your life,” said Harry, with a laugh. He was himself
quite tranquil about his appointment, never doubting that some day it
would turn up.

“It is easier to ask a stranger than a friend,” said Mrs. Sandford. “It
is like trading on friendship with a man you know; but this man’s
nothing but a patron, or an admirer. I should have asked him like--I
mean at once.”

“Mother was going to say like a shot--she is getting dreadfully slangy,
worse than any of us. Let’s hope old Okeham will come back; there’s not
much time lost,” said the cheerful youth.

“When your father was your age he was making a good deal of money. We
were beginning to see our way,” said Mrs. Sandford, shaking her head.

“What an awfully imprudent pair you must have been to marry so early!”
cried Jack.

“I wonder what you would say to us if we suggested anything of the
kind?” said Miss Ada, who had made herself very agreeable to Lord
Okeham.

“A poor painter!” said Lizzie, with a tone in her voice which her mother
understood--for, indeed Mrs. Sandford did not at all encourage the
attentions of poor painters, having still that early certainty of great
matches in her mind.

The young people were quite fond of their parents, very proud of their
father, dutiful as far as was consistent with the traditions of their
generation: but naturally they were of opinion that fathers and mothers
were slightly antiquated, and did not possess the last lights.

“The young ones are too many for you, Mary,” said Mr. Sandford; but he
added, “It’s true what your mother says; you oughtn’t to be about so
much as you are, doing nothing. You ought to grind as long as you’re
young----”

“At what, sir?” said Harry, with mock reverence. Mr. Sandford did not
reply, for indeed he could not. Instead of giving an answer he went back
to the studio, which indeed he had begun to find a pleasant refuge in
the midst of all the flow of youthful talk and laughter, which was not
of the kind he had been used to in his youth. Young artists, those poor
painters whom Mrs. Sandford held at arms’ length, are not perhaps much
more sensible than other young men, but they have at least a subject on
which any amount of talk is possible, and which their elders can
understand. Mr. Sandford was proud of his children, and loved them
dearly. Their education, he believed, was much better than his own, and
they knew a great deal more on general subjects than he did. But their
jargon was not his jargon, and though it seemed very clever and knowing,
and even amusing for a while, it soon palled upon him. He went back to
his studio and to the picture he was painting, for the daylight was
still good. It was the largest of his Academy pictures, and nearly
finished. It occurred to him as he stood looking at it critically from a
distance, with his head on one side and his hand shading now one part
now another, that Lord Okeham, though very complimentary, had not said
anything about a desire to possess in his small collection a specimen of
such a well-known master as ----. He remembered, now, that it was with
this desire that his lordship had been supposed to be coming. Daniells,
the picture dealer, had said as much. “He wants to come and see what
you’ve got on the stocks. Tell you w’at, old man, ’e’s as rich as
Cressus. Lay it on thick, ’e won’t mind--give you two thou’ as easy as
five ’undred.” This was what, with his usual elegant familiarity, Mr.
Daniells had said. It occurred to Mr. Sandford, with a curious little
pang of surprise, that Lord Okeham had not said a word on the subject.
He had admired everything, he had lingered upon some of the smaller
sketches, making little remarks in the way of criticism now and then
which the painter recognised as very judicious, but he had not said a
word about enriching his collection with a specimen, &c. The surprise
with which Mr. Sandford noticed this had a sort of sting in it--a prick
like the barb of a fish-hook, like the thorn upon a rose. He did not at
the moment exactly perceive why he should have felt it so. After a
little while, indeed, he began to smile at the idea that it was from
Okeham that this sting came. What did one man’s favour, even though that
man was a cabinet minister, matter to him? It was not that, it was the
discussion that followed which had left him with a prick of disquiet, a
tingling spot in his mind. He must, he felt, speak to some one about
Harry--not Lord Okeham, whom he did not know, who had evidently changed
his mind about that specimen of so well-known, &c. He would not dream of
saying anything to him, a man not sympathetic, a stranger whom, though
he might offer him a cup of tea, he did not really know; but it was very
clear that Harry ought to have something to do.

So ought Jack. Jack had a profession, but that did not seem to advance
him much. Mr. Sandford had early determined that his sons should not be
artists like himself--that they should have no precarious career,
dependent on the favour of picture dealers and patrons, notwithstanding
that he himself had done very well in that way. He had always resolved
from the beginning to give them every advantage. Mr. Sandford recalled
to mind that a few years ago he had been very strenuous on this point,
talking of the duty of giving his children the very best education,
which was the best thing any father could do for his children. He had
been very confident indeed on that subject; now he paused and rubbed his
chin meditatively with his mahl-stick. Was it possible that he was not
quite so sure now? He shook himself free from this troublesome coil of
thought, and made up his mind that he must make an effort about Harry.
Then he put down his brushes and went out for his afternoon walk.

In earlier days Mrs. Sandford would have come into the studio; she would
have talked Lord Okeham over. She would have said, “Oh, he did not like
that forest bit, didn’t he? Upon my word! I suppose my lord thinks he is
a judge!”

“What he said was reasonable enough. He does know something about it. I
told you myself I was not satisfied with the balance of colour. The
shadow’s too dark. The middle distance----”

“Oh, Edward, don’t talk nonsense: that’s just like you--you’re so
ridiculously modest. If the cook were to come in one morning and tell
you she thought your composition bad, you would say she approached the
picture without any bias, and probably what she said was quite true.
Come out for a walk.”

This, be it clearly understood, was an imaginary conversation. It did
not take place for the excellent reason that Mrs. Sandford was in the
drawing-room, smiling at the witticisms of her young ones, and saying at
intervals, “Come, come, Lizzie!” and “Don’t be so satirical, Jack.” They
were not nearly such good company as her husband, nor did they want her
half so much, but she thought they did, and that it was her duty to be
there. So Mr. Sandford, who did not think of it at all as a grievance,
but only as a natural necessity, had nothing but an imaginary talk which
did not relieve him much, and went out for his walk by himself.

It would be foolish to date absolutely from that day a slight change
that began to work in him--but it did come on about this time: and that
was an anxiety that the boys should get on and begin their life’s work
in earnest which had not affected him before. He had been too busy to
think much except about his work so long as the young ones were well;
and the period at which the young ones become men and women is not
always easy for a father to discern so long as they are all under his
roof as in their childish days. He, too, had let things flow along in
the well-being of the time without pausing to inquire how long it was to
last, or what was to come of it. A man of sixty who is in perfectly good
health does not feel himself to be old, nor think it necessary to
consider the approaching end of his career. Something, however, aroused
him now about these boys. He got a little irritable when he saw Harry
about, playing tennis with the girls, sometimes spending the whole day
in flannels. “Why can’t he do something?” he said to his wife.

“Dear Edward,” said Mrs. Sandford, “what can the poor boy do? He is only
too anxious to do something. He is always talking to me about it. If
only Lord Okeham or some one would get a post for him. Is there no one
you can speak to about poor Harry?”

This was turning the tables upon Harry’s father, who, to tell the truth,
was very slow to ask favours, and did not like it all. He did speak,
however--not to Lord Okeham, but to an inferior potentate, and was told
that all the lists were full, although everybody would be delighted, of
course, to serve him if possible; and nothing came of that. Then there
was Jack. The young man came into dinner one day in the highest spirits.
He had got a brief--a real brief--a curiosity which he regarded with a
jocular admiration. “I shall be a rich man in no time,” he said.

“How much is your fee?” asked one of the girls. “You must take us
somewhere with it Jack.”

“It is two guineas,” Jack said, and then there was a general burst of
laughter--that laughter young and fresh which is sweet to the ears of
fathers and mothers.

“That’s majestic,” Harry said; “lend us something, old fellow, for
luck,” and they all laughed again. They thought it a capital joke that
Jack should earn two guineas in six months. It did not hurt him or any
of them; he had everything he wanted as if he had been earning hundreds.
But Mr. Sandford did not laugh. This time it vexed and disturbed him to
hear all the cheerful banter and talk about Jack’s two guineas.

“It is all very well to laugh,” he said to his wife afterwards, “but how
is he ever to live upon that?”

“Dear Edward, it’s not like you to take their fun in earnest,” said the
mother. “The poor boy has such spirits--and then it’s always a
beginning.”

“I am afraid his spirits are too good. If he would only take life a
little more seriously----”

“Why should he?” said Mrs. Sandford, taking high ground; “it is his
happiest time. If he wanted to marry and set up for himself it might be
different. But they have no cares--as yet. We ought to be thankful they
are all so happy at home. Few young men love their home like our boys.
We ought to be very thankful,” she repeated with a devout look upon her
upturned face. It took the words out of his mouth. He could not say any
more.

But he kept on thinking. The time was passing away with great
rapidity--far more quickly than it had ever done. Sunday trod on the
heels of Sunday, and the months jostled each other as they flew along.
Presently it was Jack’s birthday, and there was a dance and a great deal
of affectionate pleasure; but when Mr. Sandford remembered how old the
boy was, it gave him a shock which none of the others felt. At that age
he himself had been Jack’s father, he had laid the foundation of his
reputation, and was a rising man. If they did not live at home and had
not everything provided for them, what would become of these boys? It
gave him a sort of panic to think of it. In the very midst of the dance,
when he was himself standing in the midst of a little knot of
respectable fathers watching the young ones enjoying themselves, this
thought overtook him and made him shiver.

“Getting on, I hear, very well at the bar,” one of the gentlemen said.

“He is not making very much money as yet,” replied Mr. Sandford.

“Oh, nobody does that--at first, at least; but so long as he has you to
fall back upon,” this good-natured friend said, with a nod of his head.

Mr. Sandford could not make any reply. He kept saying to himself, “Two
guineas--two guineas--he could not live very long on that.” And Harry
had not even two guineas. It fretted him to have this thought come back
at all manner of unlikely times. He did not seem able to shake it off.
And Mrs. Sandford was always on the defensive, seeing it in his eyes,
and making responses to it, speaking at it, always returning to the
subject. She dwelt upon the goodness of the boys, and their love of
their home, and how good it was for the girls to have them, and how
nobody made their mark all at once, “except people that have genius like
you,” she said with that wifely admiration and faith which is so sweet
to a man. What more could he say?




CHAPTER II.


About the same time, or a little later, another shadow rose up upon Mr.
Sandford’s life. It was like the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, like
a mere film upon the blue sky at first. Perhaps the very first
appearance of it--the faintest shadow of a shade upon the blue--arose on
that day when Lord Okeham visited the studio and went away without
giving any commission. Not that great personages had not come before
with the same result; but that this time there had been supposed to be a
distinct purpose in his visit beyond that of taking a cup of tea with
the artist’s wife and daughters--and this purpose had not been carried
out. It was not the cloud, but it was a sort of _avant-coureur_ of the
cloud, like the chill little momentary breath which sometimes heralds a
storm. No storm followed, but the shadow grew. The next thing that made
it really shape itself as a little more than a film was the fact of his
Academy picture, the principal one of the year, coming back--without
any explanation at all; not purchased, nor even with any application
from the print-sellers about an engraving; simply coming back as it had
gone into the exhibition. No doubt in the course of a long career such a
thing as this, too, had happened before. But there was generally
something to account for it, and the picture thus returned seldom dwelt
long in the painter’s hands. This time, however, it subsided quite
quietly into its place, lighting up the studio with a great deal of
colour and interest--“a pleasure to see,” Mrs. Sandford said, who had
often declared that the worst thing of being a painter’s wife was that
she never liked to see the pictures go away. This might be very true,
and it is quite possible that it was a pleasure to behold, standing on
its easel against a wall which generally was enlivened only with the
earliest of sketches, and against which a lay figure grinned and
sprawled.

But the prospect was not quite agreeable to the painter. However
cheerfully he went into his studio in the morning, he always grew grave
when he came in front of that brilliant canvas. It was the “Black Prince
at Limoges,” a picture full of life and action, with all the aid of
mediæval costume and picturesque groups--such a picture as commanded
everybody’s interest in Mr. Sandford’s younger days. He would go and
stand before it for an hour at a time, trying to find some fault in the
composition, or in the flesh tints, or the arrangements of the
draperies. It took away his thoughts from the subject he was then
engaged in working out. Sometimes he would put up his hand to separate
one portion from another, sometimes divide it with a screen of paper,
sometimes even alter an outline with chalk, or mellow a spot of colour
with his brush. There was very little fault to be found with the
picture. It carried out all the rules of composition to which the
painter had been bred. The group of women which formed the central light
was full of beauty; the sick warrior to whom they appealed was a marvel
of strength and ferocity, made all the keener by the pallor of his
illness. There was nothing to be said against the picture; except,
perhaps, that, had not this been Mr. Sandford’s profession, there was no
occasion for its existence at all.

When the mind has once been filled with a new idea it is astounding how
many events occur to heighten it. Other distinguished visitors came to
the studio, like Lord Okeham, and went away again, having left a great
deal of praise and a little criticism, but nothing else, behind them.
These were not, perhaps, of importance enough to have produced much
effect at an ordinary moment, but they added to the general
discouragement. Mr. Sandford smiled within himself at the mistakes the
amateurs made, and the small amount of real knowledge which they showed;
but when they were gone the smile became something like that which is
generally and vulgarly described as being on the wrong side of the
mouth. It was all very well to smile at the amateurs--but it was in the
long run their taste, and not that of the heaven-born artist, which
carried the day; and when a man takes away in his pocket the sum which
ought to supply your balance at your banker’s, the sight of his back as
he goes out at the door is not pleasant. Mr. Sandford had not come to
that pitch yet; but he laughed no longer, and felt a certain ruefulness
in his own look when one after another departed without a word of a
commission. There were other things, too, not really of the slightest
importance, which deepened the impression--the chatter of Jack’s
friends, for instance, some of whom were young journalists, and talked
the familiar jargon of critics. He came into the drawing-room one day
during one of his wife’s teas, and found two or three young men,
sprawling about with legs stretched out over the limited space, who were
pulling to pieces a recent exhibition of the works of a Royal
Academician. “You would think you had got among half a dozen different
sorts of people dressed for private theatricals,” said one of the
youths. “Old models got up as Shakespearian kings, and that sort of
thing. _You_ know, Mrs. Sandford; conventional groups trying to look as
if they were historical.”

“I remember Mr. White’s pictures very well,” said Mrs. Sandford. “I used
to think them beautiful. We all rushed to see what he had in the
exhibition, upon the private view day, when I did not know so much about
it as I do now.”

“Ah, yes; before you knew so much about it,” said the art authority.
“You would think very differently to-day.”

“The whole school is like that,” said another. “Historical painting is
gone out like historical novel-writing. The public is tired of costume.
Life is too short for that sort of thing. We want a far more profound
knowledge of the human figure and beauty in the abstract----”

“Stuff!” said Harry; “the British public doesn’t want your nudities,
whatever you may think.”

“The British public likes babies, and sick girls getting well, and
beautiful young gentlemen saying eternal adieux to lovely young ladies,”
said one of the girls.

“To be sure, that sort of thing always goes on; but everybody must feel
that in cultured circles there is a far greater sense of the beauty of
colour for itself and art for art than in those ridiculous old days when
the subject was everything----”

“You confuse me with your new lights,” said Mrs. Sandford. “I always did
think there was a great deal in a good subject.”

“My dear Mrs. Sandford!” cried one of the young men, laughing; while
another added, with the solemnity of his kind--

“People really did think so at one time. It was a genuine belief so long
as it lasted. I am not one of those who laugh at faith so _naïf_.
Whatever is true even for a time has a right to be respected,” said
this profound young man.

Mr. Sandford came in at this point, having paused a little to enjoy the
fun, as he said to himself. It was wonderful to hear how they
chattered--these babes. “I am glad to hear that you are all so tolerant
of the old fogeys,” he said, with a laugh as he showed himself. And one
at least of the young men had the good taste to jump up as if he were
ashamed of himself, and to take his legs out of the way.

“I suppose that’s the new creed that those fellows were giving forth,”
he said to Jack, when the other young men were gone.

“Oh, I don’t know, sir,” said Jack, with an embarrassed laugh. “We all
of us say our say.”

“But that is the say of most of you, I suppose,” said his father.

“Well, sir, I suppose every generation has its own standard. ‘The old
order changeth,’ don’t you know--in art as well as in other things.”

“I see; and you think we know precious little about it,” said Mr.
Sandford, with a joyless smile which curled his lip without obeying any
mirthful impulse. He felt angry and unreasonably annoyed at the silly
boys who knew so little. “But they know how to put that rubbish into
words, and they get it published, and it affects the general opinion,”
he said to himself, with perhaps a feeling, not unnatural in the
circumstances, that he would like to drown those kittens with their
miauling about things they knew nothing about. Angry moods, however, did
not last long in Mr. Sandford’s mind. He went back to his studio and
looked at the “Black Prince” in the light of these criticisms. And he
found that some of the old courtiers in attendance on the sick warrior
did look unfeignedly like old models, which indeed they were, and that
there was more composition than life in the attitudes of the women. “I
always thought that arm should come like this,” he said to himself,
taking up his chalk.

One day about this time he had a visit from Daniells, the picture
dealer, leading a millionaire--a newly-fledged one--who was making a
gallery and buying right and left. Daniells, though he was very dubious
about his h’s, was a good fellow, and always ready to stand by a friend.
He was taking his millionaire a round of the studios, and especially to
those in which there was something which had not “come off,” according
to his phraseology. The millionaire was exceptionally ignorant and
outspoken, expressing his own opinion freely. “What sort of a thing have
we got here?” he said, walking up to the “Black Prince;” “uncommon nice
lot of girls, certainly; but what are they all doing round the fellow
out of the hospital? I say, is it something catching?” he cried, giving
Mr. Sandford a dig with his elbow. Daniells laughed at this long and
loudly, but it was the utmost the painter could do to conjure up a
simple smile. He explained as well as he could that they were begging
for life, and that the town was being sacked, a terrible event of which
his visitor might have heard.

“Sacked,” said the millionaire; “you mean that they’re factory hands and
have got the sack, or that they have been just told they’ve got to work
short time. I understand that; and it shows how human nature’s just the
same in all ages. But I can tell you that in Lancashire it’s a nice
rowing he’d have got instead of all these sweet looks. They would not
have let him off like that, don’t you think it. Wherever you get your
women from, ours ain’t of that kind.”

Sandford tried to explain what kind of a sack it was, but he did not
succeed, for the rich man was much pleased with his own view.

“It’s a fine picture,” said Daniells; “Mr. Sandford, he’s one of the
very best of our modern masters, sir. He has got a great name, and
beautiful his pictures look in a gallery with the others to set ’em off.
Hung on the line in the Academy, and collected crowds. I shouldn’t ’a
been surprised if they’d ’ad to put a rail round it like they did to Mr.
Frith’s.”

He gave a wink at Mr. Sandford as he spoke, which made our poor painter
sick.

“I’ve got one of Frith’s,” said the millionaire.

“You’ll ’ave got one of every modern artist worth counting when you’ve
got Mr. Sandford’s,” said Daniells, with a pat upon the shoulder to his
wealthy client. That gentleman turned round, putting his hands into his
pockets.

“I’ve seen some pictures as I liked better,” he said.

“Yes, I know. You’ve seen that one o’ Millais’, a regular stunner; but,
God bless you, that’s but one figger, and twice the money. Look at the
work in that,” cried the dealer, turning his man round again, who gave
the picture another condescending inspection from one corner to the
other.

“I don’t deny there’s a deal of work in it,” he said, “if it’s painted
fair with everything from the life; and I don’t mind taking it to
complete my collection; but I’ll expect to have that considered in the
price,” he added, turning once more on the painter. “You see, Mr. ----
(What’s the gentleman’s name, Daniells?) I am not death on the picture
for itself. It’s a fine showy picture, and I don’t doubt ’t’ll look well
when it’s hung; but big things like that, as don’t tell their story
plain, they’re not exactly my taste. However, it’s all right since
Daniells says so. The only man I know that goes in for that sort of
thing thinks all the world of Daniells. ‘Go to Daniells,’ he says, ‘and
you’ll be all right.’ So I’ll take the picture, but I’ll expect a
hundred or two off for ready money. I suppose there’s discount in all
trades.”

“Say fifty off, and you’ll do very well, and get a fine thing cheap,”
said Daniells.

Mr. Sandford’s countenance had darkened. He was very amiable, very
courteous, much indisposed to bargaining, but he felt as if his customer
had jumped upon him, and it was all he could do to contain himself. “I
never make----” he began, with a little haughtiness most unusual to him;
but before he had said the final words he caught Daniells’ eye, who was
making anxious signs to him. The picture dealer twisted his face into a
great many contortions. He raised his eyebrows, he moved his lips, he
made all kinds of gestures; at last, under a pretence of looking at a
sketch, he darted between Mr. Sandford and the other, and in a hoarse
whisper said “Take it,” imperatively, in the painter’s ear.

Mr. Sandford came to an astonished pause. He looked at the uncouth
patron of art, and at the dealer, and at the picture, in turn. It was on
his lips to say that nothing would induce him to let the “Black Prince”
go; but something stopped and chilled him--something, he could not tell
what. He paused a moment, then retired suddenly to the back of the
studio. “I’m not good at making bargains--I will leave myself,” he said,
“in Mr. Daniells’ hands.”

“Ah, a bad system--a bad system. Every man ought to make his own
bargains,” said the rich man.

Mr. Sandford did not listen. He began to turn over a portfolio of old
sketches as if that were the most important thing in the world. He
heard the voices murmur on, sometimes louder, sometimes lower, broken by
more than one sharp exclamation, but restrained himself and did not
interfere. Many thoughts went through his mind while he stooped over the
big portfolio, and turned over, without seeing them, sketch after
sketch. Why should he be bidden to “take it” in that imperative way?
What did Daniells know which made him interfere with such a high hand?
He was tempted again and again to turn round, to put a stop to the
negotiation, to say, as he had the best right, “I’ll have none of this;”
but he did not do it, though he could not even to himself explain why.

He found eventually that Daniells had sold the picture for him at a
reduction of fifty guineas from the original price, which was a thing of
no importance. He hated the bargain, but the little sacrifice of the
money moved him not at all. He recovered his temper or his composure
when the arrangement was completed, and smiled with a reserved
acceptance of the millionaire’s invitation to “come to my place and see
it hung,” as he showed the pair away. They were a well-matched pair, and
Daniells was no doubt far better adapted to deal with each a man than a
sensitive, proud artist, who did not like to have his toes trodden upon.
After a while, indeed, Mr. Sandford felt himself quite able to smile at
the incident, and shook off all his annoyance. He went in to luncheon
with the cheque in his hand.

“I have sold the ‘Black Prince,’” he said, with a certain pleasure, even
triumph, in his voice, remembering how Jack’s friends had scoffed, if
not at the picture, at least at the school to which it belonged.

“Ah!” cried Mrs. Sandford, half pleased, half regretful. “I knew we
should not have to give it house-room long.” She gave a glance round her
as if she had heard something derogatory to the picture too.

“Who have you taken in and done for this time, father?” said Harry, who
was given to banter.

“Was it that horrid man who came with Mr. Daniells?” cried Lizzie. “Oh,
papa, I should not have thought you would have sold a nice picture to
such a man.”

“Art-patrons are like gift-horses; we must not look them in the mouth,”
said the painter. “There are quantities of h’s, no doubt, to be found
about the studio; but if we stood upon that----”

“So long as he doesn’t leave out anything, either h’s or 0’s, in his
cheque.”

Mr. Sandford felt slightly, unreasonably offended by any reference to
the cheque. He gave it to his wife to send to the bank, with an annoyed
apprehension that she would make some remark upon the fifty guineas
which were left out. But Mrs. Sandford had not been his wife for thirty
years without being able to read the annoyance in his face. And though
she did not know what was its cause she respected it, and said not a
word about the difference which her quick eye saw at once. Could it be
that which had vexed Edward? she asked herself--he was not usually a man
who counted his pounds in that way.

The sending off of the “Black Prince,” its packing and directing, and
all the details of its departure, occupied him for some time. It was
August, the beginning of holiday time, when, though never without a
protest at the loss of the light days, even a painter idles a little.
And the youngest boy had come from school, and they were all going to
the seaside. Mr. Sandford did not like the bustle of the moment. He
proposed to stay in town for a few days after the family, and join them
when they had settled down in their new quarters. Before they went,
however, he had an interview with one of those friends of Jack’s who
were always about the house, and whose opinions on art were so different
from Mr. Sandford’s, which gave another touch of excitement to the
household. The young fellow wanted to marry Lizzie, as had been a long
time apparent to everybody but her father. There was nothing to be said
against him except that he had not much money; but Mr. Sandford thought
that young Moulton looked startled when he had to inform him that Lizzie
would have no fortune. “Of course that was not of the least
consequence,” he said, but he gave his future father-in-law a curious
and startled look.

“I think he was disappointed that there was no money,” the painter said
afterwards to his wife.

“Oh, Edward! there is nothing mercenary about him!” said Mrs. Sandford;
but she sighed and added, “If there only had been a little for her--just
enough for her clothes. It makes such a difference to a young married
woman. It is hard to have to ask your husband for everything.”

“Did you think so, Mary?” he asked, with a smile but a sense of pain.

“I--but we were not like ordinary people, we were just two fools
together,” said the wife, with a smile which brightened all her face;
“but,” she added, shaking her head, “we don’t marry our daughters like
that.”

“If she is half as good to him as you have been to me----”

“Oh, don’t speak,” she said, putting up her hand to stop his mouth.
“Lance Moulton can never be the hundredth part so good as _my_ husband.”
But she stopped after this little outburst, and laughed, and again
shaking her head, repeated, “But we don’t marry our daughters like
that.”

He felt inclined to ask, but did not, why?

When they all went away Mr. Sandford felt a little lonely, left by
himself in the house, and perhaps it was that as much as anything else
that set him thinking again. His wife had pressed the question of what
Lizzie would want if she married young Moulton, who was only a
journalist, on several occasions, until at last they had both decided
that a small allowance might be made to her in place of a fortune.

“Fifty pounds is the interest of a thousand, and that is what she will
have when we die,” Mrs. Sandford said, who was not learned in per cents.
“I think we might give her fifty pounds a year, Edward.”

“Fifty pounds will not do much good,” he said.

“Not in their housekeeping, perhaps; but to have even fifty pounds will
be a great thing for _her_. It will make her so much more comfortable.”
Thus they concluded the matter between them, though not without a
certain hesitation on Mr. Sandford’s part. It was strange that he should
hesitate. He had always been so liberal, ready to give. There was no
reason why he should take fright now. There was the millionaire’s cheque
for the “Black Prince,” which had just been paid into the bank, leaving
a comfortable balance to their credit. There was no pressure of any kind
for the moment. To those who had known what it was to await their next
payment very anxiously in order to pay very pressing debts, and had seen
the little stream of money flowing, flowing away, till it almost seemed
to be on the point of disappearing altogether, the ease of having a
considerable sum to their credit was indescribable; but Mrs. Sandford
was more and more wrapped up in the children, and though never
indifferent, yet a little detached in every-day thought and action from
her husband. She did not ask him as usual about his commissions and his
future work. She seemed altogether at ease in her mind about everything
that was not the boys and the girls.




CHAPTER III.


The house was very quiet when they were all away. Merely to look into
the drawing-room was enough to give any one a chill. The sense of
emptiness where generally every corner was full, and silence where there
were always so many voices, was very depressing. Mr. Sandford consoled
himself by a very hard day’s work the first day of the absence of his
family, getting on very well indeed, and making a great advance in the
picture he was painting--a small picture intended for one of his oldest
friends. In the evening, as he had nothing else to occupy him, he moved
about the studio, not going into the other parts of the house at all,
and amused himself by making a little study of the moonlight as it came
in upon the plants in the conservatory. His house was in a quarter not
fashionable, somewhere between St. John’s Wood and Regent’s Park, and
consequently there was more room than is usual in London, a pretty
garden and plenty of air. The effect of the moonlight and the black
exaggerated shadows amused him. The thought passed through his mind that
if perhaps he were one of the newfangled school which Jack’s friends
believed in, he might turn that unreal scene which was so indubitable a
fact into a picture and probably make a great success as an
impressionist--an idea at which he smiled with a milder but not less
genuine contempt than the young impressionist might have felt for Mr.
Sandford’s school. He had half a mind to do it--to conceal his name and
send it to one of the lesser exhibitions, so as afterwards to have a
laugh at the young men, and prove to them how easy the trick was, and
that any old fogey who took the trouble could beat them in their own
way. Next morning, however, he threw the sketch into a portfolio, with a
horror of the black and white extravagance which in the daylight
offended his artist-eye, and which he had a suspicion was not so good
after all, or so easy a proof of the facility of doing that sort of
thing as he had supposed. And that day his work did not advance so
quickly or so satisfactorily. He listened for the swing of the door at
the other end of the passage which connected the studio with the house,
though he knew well enough there was no one who could come to disturb
him. There are days when it is so agreeable to be disturbed! And it was
when he was painting in this languid way, and, as was natural, not at
all pleasing himself with his work, that there suddenly and most
distinctly came before him, as if some one had come in and said it, a
thing--a fact--which strangely enough he had not even thought of before.
When it first occurred to him his hand suddenly stopped work with an
action of its own before the mind had time to influence it, and there
was a sudden rush of heat to his head. He felt drops of moisture come
out on his forehead; his heart for a second paused too. His whole being
received a shock--a start. For the first moment he could scarcely make
out what this extraordinary sudden commotion, for which his mind seemed
only partially responsible, could be.

This was what had in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, occurred to
the painter. He had, of course, been aware of it before without giving
any particular importance to the fact. The fact, indeed, in a
precarious, uncertain profession like his, in which a piece of good
fortune might occur at any moment, was really not of the first
importance; but it flashed upon him now in a significance and with a
force which no such thing had ever held before. It was this--that when
he had completed the little picture upon which he was working he had no
other commission of any kind on hand. It sounds very prosaic to be a
thing capable of giving such a tragic shot--but it was not prosaic. One
can even conceive circumstances in which despair and death might be in
such words; and to no one in Mr. Sandford’s position could they be
pleasant. Even if the fact represented no material loss, it would
represent loss--which at his age could never be made up--loss of
acceptance, loss of position, that kind of failure which is popularly
represented as being “shelved,” put aside as a thing that is done with;
always a keen and grievous pang. But to our painter the words meant more
than that. They meant a cutting off of the ground from under his feet, a
sudden arrest of everything, a full stop, which in his fully flowing
liberal life was a tragic horror and impossibility, a something far more
terrible than death. It had upon him something of the character of a
paralytic stroke. His hand, as we have said, stopped work sharply,
suddenly; it trembled, and the brush with which he was painting fell
from it; his limbs tottered under him, his under lip dropped, his heart
gave a leap and then a dead pause. He stumbled backwards for a few steps
and sank into a chair.

Well! it was only for a few moments that he remained under the influence
of this shock. He picked himself up again, and then picked up his brush
and dried the perspiration from his forehead, and his heart with a
louder beat went on again as if also crying out “Well!” When he had
recovered the power of thought--which was not for a moment or two--he
smiled to himself and said, “What then?” Such a thing had happened
before. In an artist’s life there are often hair-breadth ’scapes, and
now and then the most prosperous comes, as it were, to a dead
wall--which is always battered through by a little perseverance or else
opens by itself, melting asunder at the touch of some heaven-sent patron
or happy accident, and so all goes on more prosperously than before. Mr.
Sandford had passed through many such crises at the beginning of his
career, and even when fully established had never been entirely certain
from whence his next year’s income was to come. But it had always come;
there had never been any real break in it--no failure of the continuity.
He had seemed to himself to be as thoroughly justified in reckoning upon
this continuity as any man in an office with so much a year. It might be
a little more or a little less, and there was always that not unpleasant
character of vagueness about it. It might even by a lucky chance for one
fortunate year be almost doubled, and this had happened on rare
occasions; but very seldom had there been any marked diminution in the
yearly incomings. He said, “Pooh, pooh,” to himself as he went up to his
picture again smiling, with his brush in his hand; not for such a matter
as that was he going to be discouraged. It was a thing that had happened
before, and would no doubt happen again. He began to work at his
picture, and went on with great spirit for perhaps a quarter of an hour,
painting in (for he had no model that morning) a piece of drapery from a
lay figure, and catching just the tone he wanted on the beautiful bit of
brocade which figured in the picture as part of a Venetian lady’s
majestic dress. He was unusually successful in his work, and also
succeeded for ten perhaps of these fifteen minutes in amusing himself
and distracting his thoughts from that discovery. A bit of success is
very exhilarating; it made him more confident than anything else could
have done. But when he had got his effect his smile began to fade away,
and his face grew grave again, and his hand trembled once more. After a
while he was obliged to give up and take a rest, putting down his
palette and brush with a sort of impatience and relief in getting rid of
them. Could he have gone straight to his wife and made her take a turn
with him in the garden, or even talked it over with her in the studio,
no doubt the impression would have died off; but she was absent, and he
could not do that; most likely, indeed, if she had been at home she
would have been absorbed in some calculation about Lizzie’s wedding, and
would not have noticed his preoccupation at all.

He sat down again in that chair, and said once more to himself, “What
then?” and thought over the times in which this accident had happened
before. But there now suddenly occurred to him another thought which was
like the chill of an icy hand touching his heart. The same thing had
happened before--but he had never been sixty before. He felt himself
struck by this as if some one had given him a blow. It was quite true;
he had called himself laughingly an old fogey, and when he and his old
friends were together they talked a great deal about their age and about
the young fellows pushing them from their seats. How much the old
fellows mean when they say this, heaven knows. So long as they are
strong and well they mean very little. It is an amusing kind of adoption
of the folly of the young which seems to show what folly it is--a sort
of brag in its way of their own superiority to all such decrepitudes,
and easy power of laughing at what does not really touch them. But alone
in their own private retirements, when a thought like this suddenly
comes, a sharp and sudden realisation of age and what it means, no doubt
the effect is different. For the moment Mr. Sandford was appalled by the
discovery he had made, which had never entered his mind before. Ah! a
pause in one’s means of making one’s living, a sudden stop in the wheels
of one’s life, is a little alarming, a little exciting, perhaps a
discouragement, perhaps a sharp and keen stimulant at other times: at
forty, even at fifty, it may be the latter; but at sixty!--this gives
at once a new character to the experience--a character never apprehended
before. His heart, which had begun to spring up with an elasticity
natural to him, stopped again--nay, did not stop, but fell into a sudden
dulness of beating, a subdued silence as if ice-bound. Sensation was too
much for thought; his mind could not go into it; he only felt it, with a
dumb pang which was deeper than either words or thought.

He could not do any more work that day. He tried again two or three
times, but ended by putting down his palette with a sense of incapacity
such as he thought he had never felt before. As a matter of fact, he
might have felt it a hundred times and attached no importance to it; he
would have gone into the house, leaving his studio, and talked or read,
or gone out for a walk, or to his club, or to see a friend, saying he
did not feel up to work to-day, and there would have been an end of it.
But he was alone, and none of these distractions were possible to him.
Luncheon came, however, which he could not eat, but sat over drearily,
not able to get away from the impression of that thought. Afterwards it
occurred to him that he would go and see Daniells and ask him--he was
not quite clear what. He could not go to one of his friends and ask, “Am
I falling off--do you see it? Has my hand lost its cunning--am I getting
old and is my mind going?” He could not ask any one such questions as
these. He smiled at it dolefully, feeling all the ridicule of the
suggestion. He knew his mind was not going--but---- At last he made up
his mind what he would do. It was a long walk to Bond Street, but it was
now afternoon and getting cooler, and the walk did him good. He reached
Daniells’ just before the picture dealer left off business for the day.
He was showing some one out very obsequiously through the outer room all
hung with pictures when he saw Sandford coming in. The stranger looked
much interested and pleased when he heard Sandford’s name.

“Introduce me, please,” he said, “if this is the great Mr. Sandford,
Daniells.”

“It is, Sir William,” said Daniells; and Sir William offered his hand
with the greatest effusion. “This is a pleasure that I have long
desired,” he said.

Mr. Sandford was surprised--he was taken unawares, and the greeting
touched his heart. “After all, perhaps it isn’t _that_,” he said to
himself.

“What a piece of luck that you should have come in just then! Why,
that’s Sir William Bloomfield--just the very man for you to know.”

“Why for me more than another? I know his name, of course,” said Mr.
Sandford, “and he seems pleasant; but I’m too old for new friends.”

“Too old; stuff and nonsense! You’re always a-harping on that string.
He’s just the man for you, just the man,” said Daniells, rubbing his
hands.

Mr. Sandford was amused--perhaps a little pleased by this encounter; and
the pressure of his heavy thoughts was stilled. He began to look at the
new pictures which had come into the gallery, to admire some and
criticise others. Daniells had the good sense always to listen to Mr.
Sandford’s criticisms with attention. They had furnished him with a
great many telling phrases, and given to his own rough and practical
knowledge of art a little occasional polish which surprised and overawed
many of his customers. He listened admiringly now as usual.

“What a deal you do know, to be sure!” he said after a while. “I don’t
know one of them that can make a thing clear like you, old man. It’s a
shame----” and here he coughed and broke off, as if endeavouring to
swallow his last words.

“What is a shame?” The broken sentence changed Mr. Sandford’s mood
again--the momentary cheer died away. “Daniells,” he said, “I want you
to tell me what you meant the other day by forcing me to accept that
man’s offer. Yes, you did. I should not have let him have the picture
but for you.”

“Forcing him! Oh, that’s a nice thing to say--the most obstinate fellow
in all London!”

“Never mind that; I can see you are fencing. Come, why did you do it?”

Daniells paused for some time. He said a great many things to stave off
his confusion, many half-things which involved others, and made his
answer perhaps more clear than if he had put it directly into words.

“I see,” Mr. Sandford said at last, “you thought it very unlikely that I
should sell it at all to any one who knew better.”

“It ain’t that. They don’t know half enough, hang ’em! or they wouldn’t
run after a booby like Blank and neglect you.”

Mr. Sandford smiled what he felt to be a very sickly smile. “We must let
Blank have his day,” he said, “I don’t grudge it him; but I’d like to
know why my chances are so bad. I have always sold my pictures.”

Daniells gave him a sudden look, as if he would have spoken; then
thought better of it, and said nothing.

“I have had no reason to complain,” Mr. Sandford continued; “I have done
very well on the whole. I have never had extravagant prices like Em or
En.”

“No,” said Daniells; “you see, you’ve never made an ’it. You’ve gone on
doing good work, and you’ve always done good work. I’d say that if I
were to die for it; but you’ve never made an ’it.”

“I suppose that’s true; but you need not put it so very frankly,” said
the painter, with a laugh.

“Frankly! I’ve got occasion to put it frankly; and I say it’s a d----d
shame--that’s what it is,” cried Daniells, raising his voice.

“You’ve had occasion? Now that we’re on this subject, I should like to
get to the bottom of it. You’ve had occasion?”

“Well, of course,” said the picture dealer, “if you drive me into a
corner. I’m in the middle of everything, and I hear what people say----”

“What do they say? That I’ve lost my sense of colour like old Millrain,
or fallen into my dotage like----”

“Nonsense, Sandford! You know it’s nothing of the kind. Don’t talk such
confounded nonsense. You are painting quite as well as ever, you know
you are. They--people don’t care for that sort of thing. It’s too good
for them, or you’re too good for them, or I don’t know what.”

Mr. Sandford kept smiling--not for pleasure; he was conscious of that
sort of fixed smile that might be thought a sneer, at those people for
whom he was too good. “And you’ve had occasion,” he said, “to prove
this?”

“Don’t smile at me like that--don’t look like that. If you knew how I’ve
argued and put it all before ’em---- I’ve said a hundred times if I’ve
said once, ‘Sandford! why, Sandford’s one of the best. There isn’t a
better educated painter not in England. You can’t pick a hole in his
pictures, try as you like.’”

“Am I indeed so much discussed?” said the victim. “I did not know I was
of such importance. And on what ground have you held this discussion,
Daniells? There must have been some occasion for it. I don’t see
anything here of mine.”

“Look here,” cried the picture dealer, roused, “if you won’t believe
me.” He opened the door of an inner room, into which Mr. Sandford
followed him. And there, with their faces turned to the wall, were three
pictures in a row. The shape of them gave him a faint, uneasy feeling.
By this time Daniells had been wound up to self-defence, and thought of
the painter’s feelings no more.

“Look ’ere,” he said, “I shouldn’t have said a word if you had let well
alone--but look ’ere.” Before one of the pictures was visible Mr.
Sandford knew what he was going to see. Three pictures of his own, of a
kind for which he had been famous--cabinet pictures, for which there had
always been the readiest market. He recognised them all with a faintness
that made his brain swim and the light go from his eyes. They seemed so
familiar, like children. At the first glance, without looking at them,
he knew what they were and all about them, and had a sick longing that
the earth would open and swallow them, and hide his shame, for so it
seemed.

“If that don’t show how I’ve trusted you, nothing can,” said the dealer.
“I thought they were as safe as the bank. I bought them all on spec,
thinking I’d get a customer as soon as they were in the shop--and, if
you’ll believe me, nobody’ll have them. I can’t tell what people are
thinking of, but that’s the truth.”

Mr. Sandford stood with the light going out of his eyes, gazing straight
before him. “In that case--in that case,” he began, “you should--I
must----”

“I say, don’t take it like that, old man. It’s the fortune of war. One
up and another down. It can’t be helped, don’t you know. Sandford, I
say, why, it’ll come all right again in half-a-dozen years or so. It’ll
come all right after a time.”

“What did you say?” said Mr. Sandford, dazed. Then he answered vaguely,
“Oh yes; all right--all right.”

“What’s the matter? I’ve been a wretched fool. Sandford, here, I say,
have a glass of wine.”

“There’s nothing the matter. It seems to me a little--cold. I know--I
know it’s not a cold day; but there’s a chill wind about,
penetrating--thanks, Daniells, you’ve cleared up my problem very well.
Now, I think--I think I understand.”

“Don’t go now, Sandford; don’t go like this.”

“I want,” he said, smiling again, “to think it over. Much obliged to
you, Daniells, for helping me to understand.”

“Sandford, don’t go like this. You make me awfully anxious--I’m sure
you’re ill. I can’t let you go out of my place, looking so dreadfully
ill, without some one with you.”

“Some one with me! I hope you don’t mean to insult me, Daniells. I am
perfectly well--a little startled, but that’s all. I shall go and take a
walk, and blow away the cobwebs, and--think it over. That’s the best
thing. I’m much obliged to you, Daniells. Good-bye.”

“Have a hansom, at least,” Daniells said.

“No hansom,” Mr. Sandford answered, turning upon the dealer with a
curious smile. He even laughed a little--low, but quite distinct. “No,
I’ll have no hansom. Good-bye, Daniells, good-bye.”

And in a minute he was gone. The picture dealer went out to the door
after him, and followed him with his eyes until his figure was lost in
the crowd. Daniells was alarmed. He blamed himself for his frankness. “I
never thought he’d have taken it to heart like that,” he said to
himself. “Yes, I did; or I might have done--he’s awful proud. But I’m
’asty. I can’t help it; I’m always doing things I’m sorry for. Anyhow,
he must have found it out some time, sooner or later,” the dealer said
to himself; and this philosophy silenced his fears.




CHAPTER IV.


Mr. Sandford knew nothing till he found himself in the Regent’s Park,
not far from his house. He had passed through the crowds in the street
with his life and thoughts suspended, feeling that to think was
impossible, seeing only before him the line of the three pictures
standing against the wall. They seemed to accompany him on his way,
showing against the front of the houses wherever he turned his eyes.
Three pictures, painted cheerfully, without a premonition, or any sense
of failure, or a moment’s fear that they would ever stand with their
faces against a dealer’s wall. One of them had been a great favourite
with his wife. The youngest girl--little Mary--had sat for one of the
figures, and Mrs. Sandford had not wished to let it go. “I wish we could
afford to keep this,” she said; “it is like selling our own flesh and
blood.” But most painters have to accustom themselves to that small
trouble, and even she had laughed at herself. And now to think that it
had never been sold at all--that it was unsaleable, oh, heaven! The
sense of a dreadful humiliation, far more than was reasonable, filled
the painter’s mind. The man whom he had always liked, but partly
despised--Daniells, who was as ignorant as a pig, who knew a picture
indeed when he saw it, but had not a notion why he liked it, nor could
render a reason or tell how he knew one to be bad or another good--that
he should be losing by his kindness, should be out of pocket, burdened
by three “Sandfords” with their faces against the wall! Mr. Sandford’s
gentle contempt came back upon him with a shock of humiliation and
shame. To sneer at a man who had suffered by him, who had given money
for his unsaleable work--a man who had thus shown himself a better man
than he: for Daniells had never said a word, probably never would have
said a word, listened to the painter’s calm assumptions and taken no
notice, having it in his power all the time to shame him! Nay, he had
done even more than this--he had brought his own customer out of his
way, in pity and friendship, to buy that “Black Prince,” no doubt
equally unsaleable, though--heaven help the poor painter!--he had not
found it out. The pang of this humiliation, mingled with tingling shame
and a painful gratitude and admiration, quivered through and through
him, penetrating the dark dismay and pain of his suspended thoughts.

He began to notice everything more clearly when he got into the park.
The August afternoon was softening every moment into the deeper
sweetness of the evening. He avoided instinctively the frequented parts,
where the children were playing and people walking about, and made a
long circuit round the outskirts of the park, where only a rare
passenger was to be met with now and then. The air was sweet, though it
was the air of town. The leaves were fluttering in a light breeze, the
birds singing their evening songs, thrushes repeating a hundred
questions, blackbirds unconditional, piping loud and clear, almost as
good as nightingales. He was a man who was not hard to please, and even
Regent’s Park delighted him on a summer evening. He felt it even now,
notwithstanding the shadow that was over him. Never, up to this time,
had care hung so heavy on Mr. Sandford but what he could escape from it
by help of the artist-eye, ever ready to seize a passing effect, or by
the gentle heart which was full of sympathy with every human emotion or
even whim of passing fancy. His heart was unaccustomed to anything
tragical. It tried even now to beguile him and escape; to withdraw his
attention to the long, streaming, level rays of the sinking sun; to get
him out of himself to the aid of the child who had broken its toy and
was crying with such passion--far more than a man can show for losses
the most terrible--by the side of the road. And these expedients
answered for the moment. But what had befallen him now was not to be
eluded as other troubles had been. He could not escape from it. The most
ingenious imagination could not lessen it by turning it over and over.
Behind the sunset rays a strange vision of the unsold pictures came out
into the very sky. They shaped themselves behind the child, whom it was
so easy to pacify with a shilling, against the park palings.
Three--which was one of the complete numbers, as if to prove the fulness
of the disaster--three pictures unsold in Daniells’ inner room, and not
a commission in hand, nothing wanted from him, no one to buy. After thus
trying every device to escape, his heart grew low and faint within him,
giving up the conflict; he felt a dull buzzing in his ears, and a dull
throbbing in his breast.

But thinking was not so easy a matter as it seemed. Think it over? How
was he to think it over? If it were possible to imagine the case of a
man who, walking serenely over a wide and peaceful country, should
suddenly, with the softest, scarcely audible, roll of the pebbles under
his feet, see the earth yawn before him and find himself on the brink of
a fearful precipice, that would have been like his case: but not so bad
as his case, for the man would have it in his power to draw back, to
retire to the peaceful fields behind: whereas, to Mr. Sandford, there
were no peaceful fields, but a gulf all round that one spot of
undermined earth on which he stood. Presently he found himself at his
own door, very tired and a little dazed in mind, thinking of that
precipice, of nothing more distinct. The house stood very solid, very
tranquil, its red roof all illumined with the last level line of the
sun, the garden stretching into shady corners under the trees, the
flower-beds blazing in lavish colours, the little lawn all burnt bare by
the ardent sun and worn with the feet of the tennis players: all so
peaceful, certain, secure--an old-established home with deep
foundations, and the assured, immovable look of household tranquillity
and peace. If the walls had been tottering, the garden relapsing into
weeds and wildness, he would not have been surprised--that would have
been suitable to his circumstances. The thing unsuitable was to come
back to that trim order and well-being, to that modest wealth and
comfort and beauty, and to know that all this too, like himself, was on
the edge of the precipice. Tired as he was, he went round the garden
before he went in, and gazed wistfully at the pleasant dwelling with its
open windows, wondering, when the next shock of the earthquake came,
whether it would all fall to pieces like a house of cards, and everybody
become aware that the earth was rent and a great chasm yawning before
the peaceful door.

He never seemed to have realised, before now, how full of modest luxury
and exquisite comfort that house was. It was not yet covered up and
dismantled, though the fingers of the maid-servants had been itching to
get at that delightful task since ever “the family” left. All was empty
and still, but all in good order; no false pretension or show,
everything temperate and well chosen; rich, soft carpets in which the
foot sank, curtains hanging in graceful folds, the cosiest chairs,
Italian cabinets, Venice glass, pictures, not only of his own but of
many contemporary artists--a delightful interior, without a bare corner
or vacant spot anywhere. He went over it with a sort of despairing
pleasure and admiration, his head aching and giddy, with a sense that at
any moment the next shock might come, and everything collapse like the
shadows of a dream. Presently he was served with his dinner, which he
could not eat, in the cool dining-room, with a large window opening to
the garden and the sweet air breathing about him as he sat down at the
vacant table. What a mockery of all certitude and safety it was!--for
nothing could seem more firmly established, more solid and secure. If he
had been a prince of the blood he might have had a more splendid
dwelling, but not more comfort, more pleasantness. All that a sober mind
could desire was there--the utmost refinement of comfort, beautiful
things all around, every colour subdued into perfection, no noise or
anything to break the spell. He was glad that the others were
absent--it was the only alleviation to the dismay within him. There
would have been questions as to what was the matter--“Are you ill,
Edward?” “What is wrong with papa?” and other such questions, which he
could not have borne.

Afterwards he went into the studio. The first thing that caught his eye
was the glow of that piece of drapery which he had painted under the
keen stimulant of the first warning. It had been a stimulant then, and
he was startled by the splendour of the colour he had put into that
piece of stuff--the roundness of it, the clear transparence of the
shadows. It stood out upon the picture like something by another hand,
painted in another age. Had he done that only a few hours ago--he with
the same brushes which had produced the rest of the picture which looked
so pale and insignificant beside it? How had he done it? it made all the
rest of the picture fade. He recognised in a moment the jogtrot, the
ordinary course of life, and against it the flush of the sudden
inspiration, the stronger handling, the glory and glow of the colour. He
had never done anything better in his life; he whose pictures were drugs
in the market, who had not a commission to look forward to. He stood
and looked at it for a long time, growing sadder and sadder. He was not
a man who had failed, and who could rail against the world; he was a man
who had succeeded; not a painter in England but would laugh out if any
one said that Sandford had been a failure. Why, who had been successful
if he had not? they would have said. He had not a word to say against
fate. Nobody was to blame, not even himself, seeing that now, in the
midst of all, he could still paint like that. He knew the value of that
as well as any man could know it. He could not shut his eyes to it
because he himself had done it. If he saw such a bit of painting in a
young fellow’s picture he would say, “Well done;” he would say, “Paint
like that, and you have your fortune in your own hand.” Ah, but he was
himself no longer a young fellow. Success was not before him; he had
grasped her, held her, and now it seemed his day was past.

It is never cheerful to have to allow that your day is past. But there
are circumstances which make it less difficult. Sometimes a man accepts
gracefully enough that message of dismissal. Then he will retire with a
certain dignity, enjoying the ease which he has purchased with his hard
work, and looking on henceforward at the struggle of the others, not
sorry, perhaps, or at least saying to the world that he is not sorry, to
be out of that conflict. Mr. Sandford said to himself that in other
circumstances he might have been capable of this; might have laid aside
his pencil, occupied himself with guiding the younger, helping the less
strong, standing umpire, perhaps, in the strife, giving place to those
who represented the future, and whose day was but beginning. Such a
retirement must always seem a fit and seemly thing: but not now; not in
what he felt was but the fulness of his career; not, above all--and this
gave the sting to all--not while he was still depending upon his
profession for his daily bread. His daily bread, and what was worse than
that, the daily bread of those he loved. How many things that simple
phrase involved! Oh for the simplicity of those days when it meant but
what it said! He asked himself with a curious, fantastic, half-amused,
half-despairing curiosity whether it had ever meant mere bread? Bread
and a little fruit, perhaps; a cake, and a draught from a spring in the
primitive Eastern days when the phrase was invented. “Day by day our
daily bread:” a loaf like that of Elijah which the angel brought him:
the cakes of manna in the wilderness of which only enough was gathered
to suffice for one day: and the tent at night to retire to, or a cave,
perhaps--a shelter which cost nothing. How different now was daily
bread; so many things involved in it, that careful product of many men’s
work, the house which was his home: and all the costly nameless
necessities, so much more than food and clothing; the dainty and
pleasant things, the flowers and gardens, the amusements, the trifles
that make life delightful and sweet. Give us our daily bread: had it
ever been supposed to mean all that? All these many years these
necessities had been supplied, and all had gone on as if it were part of
the constitution of the world. But now the time had come when the
machinery was stopped, when everything was brought to a conclusion. Mr.
Sandford turned his eye from that bit of painting which stood out upon
his picture as if the sun had touched it, to the sheaves of old studies
and sketches in the portfolios, the half-finished bits about the walls,
all those scraps and fragments, full of suggestion, full of beautiful
thoughts, which make the studio of a great painter rich. He had thought
a few days ago that all this meant wealth. Now his eyes were opened, and
he saw that it meant nothing, that all about him was rubbish not worth
the collection, and himself, who could work no longer, who was no more
good for anything, only one piece of lumber the more, the most valueless
of all.

He paused, and tried to say to himself that this was morbid. But it was
not morbid, it was true. With that curious hurrying of the thoughts
which a great calamity brings about, he had already glimpsed everything,
seeing the whole situation and all that was involved. There was a
certain sum of money in the bank, no more anywhere, except after his own
death. There were his insurances, a little for every one, enough, he had
hoped, though in a much changed and subdued manner, to support his wife
and the girls, enough for that daily bread of which he had been
thinking; but it could not be had till he died; and that was all. There
was nothing, nothing more; nothing to live upon, nothing to turn to. If
you have losses, if your income is reduced, you can retrench and
diminish your expenses. But when everything is cut off in a moment, when
you have no income at all? such utter loss paralyses the unfortunate.
He stood in his studio with a sort of vague smile upon his face, and
something of the imbecility of utter helplessness taking possession of
him. Everything cut off. Nothing to turn to. Vague visions passed
through his mind of the expenses of that seaside house, for instance,
which could not be got rid of now; of Lizzie’s fifty pounds a year which
he had promised not without forebodings; of Jack’s fee of two guineas
which the children had all made so merry about; of the easy course of
their existence, their life, which was so blameless, so innocent, so
kind: they were all ready to give, ready to be hospitable; none of the
family could see another in want and not eagerly offer what they had.
Good God! and to think they had nothing, nothing! It was not a question
of enough, it was that there was nothing; that all the streams were
closed, and all the doors shut, and the successful man, with his large
income, had suddenly become like a navvy out of work, like a dock
labourer, or whatever was most pitifully unprovided for in the world.

It made Mr. Sandford’s brain whirl. So much in the bank, and after that
nothing; and all the liberal life going on; the servants, who could not
be sent off at a moment’s notice; the house, which could not be
abandoned; the family, all so cheerful in their false security, who had
no presentiment of evil. He asked himself what people did who were
ruined? He had no great acquaintance with such things. What did they do?
He was very helpless. He could not realise the possibility of breaking
up the house, having no home; of dispersing all the pleasant things
which had been part of his being so long; of stopping short---- He could
not understand how such things were done. And those people who were
ruined generally had something upon which they could fall back. A
merchant could begin again. He might have friends who would help him to
a new start, and there was always hope that he might do as well at last
as at first. But an artist (at sixty) could have no new start. The
public would have none of him. He had done his best; he could not begin
anew. His career when once closed was over, and nothing more could be
made of it. He remembered with a forlorn self-reproach of having himself
said that So-and-so should retire; that it would be more dignified to
give up work before work gave him up. Ah! so easy a thing to say, so
cruel a thing to say; but he had not realised that it was cruel, or that
such an end was cruel. He had never supposed it possible that such a
thing could happen to himself.

The insurances: yes, there were always the insurances: a thousand pounds
for each child, that was the calculation they had made. They had said to
each other in the old times, Mary and he, that they never could save
money enough to make any appreciable provision for so many children, but
that if they could but secure for each a thousand pounds, that would
always be something. It would help to give the boys a start; it would be
something for the girls. That the boys should all have professions in
which they would be doing well, and the girls husbands to provide for
them, had seemed too commonplace a certainty even to be dwelt upon: and
a thousand pounds is never to be despised; it would help the young ones
over any early struggle, it would make all the difference. “So long as
we live,” Mrs. Sandford had said, “they will always have us to fall back
upon: and afterwards--what a thing it would have been for us, Edward, to
have a thousand pounds to the good to begin upon!” They had thought
they made everything safe so, for the young ones. Mr. Sandford, indeed,
still felt a faint lightening of his heart as he thought of the
insurances. It had always done him good to think of them; that would be
something at least to leave behind. But then it was necessary first that
he should die.

He had never thought urgently of that necessity. So long as there is
nothing pressing about it, no appearance of its approach, it is easy
enough to speak of that conclusion. Sometimes there is even a pensive
pleasure in it. “When I am out of the way,” “When our day is over,” are
things quite simple to say. For of course that must come one time or
another, as everybody knows. It is more serious, but still not anything
very bad, to speak now and then of what is to be done “if anything
happens.” These things make but little impression upon the mind, even
when old age is on its way. And Mr. Sandford at sixty had as yet felt
very few premonitions of old age. He had called himself an old man with
a laugh, for his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated; and it
was still pleasantly absurd to think that he could be supposed an old
man. But now all this took a different aspect. He felt no older, indeed,
but his position was altogether changed. In the shock of his new
circumstances he stood helpless, not knowing how to meet this unfeared,
unthought-of contingency. But his mind went off with a spring to further
eventualities. The only comfort was this, they had a thousand pounds
apiece laid up for them. But it would be necessary first that he should
die.

Thinking it all over, he thought, on the whole, that this was the best
thing that could happen. The changes which he surveyed with such a sense
of impossibility, not knowing how they could be brought about, would
become quite natural if he died. There was always a change on the death
of the father. It was the natural time for remodelling life, for
altering everything. The family would not be able, of course, to remain
in this house, to keep up their present superstructure of existence: but
then in the change of circumstances that would seem quite natural and
they would not feel it. They could put everything, then, upon a simpler
footing. And they would have an income, not much of an income, perhaps,
but yet something that would come in punctually to the day, and which
would be independent of anything they did, which would have nothing to
do with picture dealers or patrons of art, or the changes of taste that
affected them. What a thing that was, when one came to think of it, to
have an income--something which came in all the same whether you worked
or not, whether you were ill or well, whether you were in a good vein
and could get on with your picture, or whether it dragged and did not
satisfy you! It gave him a sensation of pleasure to think of it: but
then he reflected on the one preliminary which was not so easy to bring
about, which no planning of his could accomplish just when it was
wanted, just when it would be of most use.

For before this state of things could ensue, it would be necessary that
Mr. Sandford should be dead; and so far as he was aware there was no
immediate prospect of anything of the kind. People do not die when it is
most necessary, when it would be most expedient. It is a thing
independent of your own will, horribly uncertain, happening just when it
is not wanted. This difficulty, when he had begun to take a little
comfort in the possible arrangement of everything, sent the painter back
into all the confusion of miserable thoughts. Was it possible that he
was in circumstances which made it impossible for him to do anything,
even to die?




CHAPTER V.


Mr. Sandford went down next day to the seaside to join his family. They
had got a very pleasant house, in full sight of the sea. “What was the
use of going to the sea at all,” Mrs. Sandford said, “unless you got the
full good of it? All the sunsets and effects, and its aspect at every
hour of the day, which was so very different from having merely glimpses
of it--that is what my husband likes,” she said. And of course this
meant the most expensive place. He was met at the station by his wife
and little Mary, the youngest, who was always considered papa’s
favourite. The others had all gone along the coast with a large pic-nic
party, some of them in a boat, some riding--for there were fine
sands--and a delightful gallop along that crisp firm road, almost within
the flash of the waves, was most invigorating. “They all look ever so
much the better for it already,” said the fond mother.

“There was not much the matter with them before that I could see.”

“Oh, nothing the matter! But they do so enjoy the sea. And I find there
are a great many people here whom we know--more than usual; and a great
deal going on.”

“There is generally a good deal going on.”

“My dear Edward, staying behind has not been good for you; you are
looking pale; and I never heard you grudge the children their little
pleasures before.”

“_I_ stayed at home, papa,” said little Mary, not willing to be
unappreciated, “to be the first to see you.”

“You are always a good little girl,” said the father gratefully.

“I assure you they were all anxious to stay: but I did not think you
would like them to give up a pleasure,” said Mrs. Sandford, never
willing to have any of her children subjected to an unfavourable
comparison.

“No; oh no,” he said, with a sigh. It was almost impossible not to feel
a grudge at the thought of that careless enjoyment, no one taking any
thought; but he could not burst out with any disclosures of his trouble
before little Mary, looking up wistfully in his face with a child’s
sensitiveness to the perception of something wrong. Mary was more ready
to perceive this than Mrs. Sandford, who only thought that her husband
was perhaps a little out of temper, or annoyed by some trifling matter,
or merely affected by the natural misanthropy of three days’ solitude.
She clasped his arm caressingly with her hand as she led him along.

“You have got some cobwebs into your mind,” she said, “but the sea
breezes will soon blow them away.”

The sea breezes were very fresh; the sea itself spread out under the
sunshine a dazzling stretch of blue; the wide vault of heaven all belted
with lines of summer cloud, “which landward stretched along the deep”
like celestial countries far away. The air was filled with the soft
plash of the water, the softened sound of voices. The whole population
seemed out of doors, and all in full enjoyment of the heavenly afternoon
and the sights and sounds of the sea. Walking along through these
holiday groups, with his wife by his side and his little girl holding
his hand, Mr. Sandford felt an unreasonable calm--a sense of soothing
quiet--come over him. He could not dismiss the phantom which
overshadowed him, but he felt for the moment that he could ignore it. It
was necessary that he should ignore it. He could not communicate to his
wife so tragical a discovery there and then, in her ease and cheerful
holiday mood. He must prepare her for it. Not all in a moment could that
revelation burst upon her. Poor Mary! so happy in her children, so full
of their plans and pleasures, so secure in the certainty of prosperous
life: even the child, strange to think it, understood him better, being
nearer, he supposed, to those springs of life where there are no shades
of intervening feeling, but all is either happiness or despair. A
profound sorrow for these innocent creatures came into his mind; he
could not overcloud them, either the mother or the child. They were so
glad to have him again; so proud to walk on either side of him, pointing
out everything: and all was so happy, were it not for one thing; nothing
to trouble them, all well, all full of pleasure, confidence, health,
lightheartedness; not a cloud--except that one.

“You have been tiring yourself--doing too much while you have been
alone; the servants have made you uncomfortable; they have been pulling
everything, to pieces, though I left the most stringent orders----”

“No, the servants were very good; they disturbed nothing, though they
were longing to get at it.”

“They always are; they take a positive pleasure in making the house look
as desolate as possible--as if nobody was ever going to live in it any
more.”

“Nobody going to live in it more!” he repeated the words with a faint
smile. “No--on the contrary, it looked the most liveable place I ever
saw. I never felt its home-look so much.”

“It is a nice little place,” she said, with a little pressure of his
arm. “Whatever may happen to the children in after life, we can always
feel that they have had a happy youth and a bright home.”

“What should happen to them?” he said, alarmed with a sudden fear that
she must know.

“Oh, nothing, I hope, but what is good; but the first change in the
family always makes one think. I hope you won’t mind, Edward: Lance
Moulton is here.”

“Oh, he is here!”

“If it is really to be so, Edward, don’t you think it is better they
should see as much of each other as possible?” his wife said, with
another tender pressure of his arm. “And somehow, when there is a thing
of that kind in the air, everything seems quickened; I am sure I can’t
tell how it is. It gives a ‘go’ to all they are doing. There are no end
of plans and schemes among them. Of course, Lance has a friend or two
about, and the Dropmores are here, who are such friends of our girls.”

“And all is fun and nonsense, I suppose?”

“Well, if you call it so--all pleasure, and kindness, and real
delightful holiday. Oh, Edward,” said Mrs. Sandford, with the ghost of a
tear in her eye, “don’t let us check it! It is the brightest time of
their lives.”

The sunset was blazing in glory upon the sea, the belts of cloud all
reddening and glowing, soft puffs of vapour like roses floating across
the blue of the sky. And the air full of young voices softened and
musical, children playing, lovers wandering about, happy mothers
watching the sport, all tender gaiety, and security, and peace.
Everything joyful--save one thing. “No; God forbid that I should check
it,” he said hastily, with a sigh that might have been a groan.

They all came back not long after, full of high spirits and endless
talk; they were all glad to see their father, who had never been any
restraint upon their pleasure, whose grave, gentle presence had never
checked or stilled them. They were sure of his sympathy more or less. If
he did not share their fun, he had at least never discouraged it. And
soon in the plenitude of their own affairs they forgot him, as was so
natural, and filled the room with laughing consultations over
to-morrow’s pleasure, and plans for it. “What are we going to do?” they
all cried, one after another, even Lizzie and Lance, coming in a little
dazzled from the balcony, where they had been enjoying the last fading
lights of the ending day, while the others had clamoured for lamps and
candles inside; “What are we going to do?” Mrs. Sandford sat beaming
upon them, hearing all the suggestions, offering a new idea now and
then. “I must know to-night, that the hampers may be got ready,” she
said; and then there was an echoing laugh all round. “Mother’s always so
practical.” Mr. Sandford sat a little outside of that lively circle with
a book in his hand. But he was not reading; he was watching them with a
strange fascination; not willing to check them; oh no! feeling a
helpless sort of wonder that they should play such pranks on the edge of
the precipice, and that none of them should divine--that even his wife
should not divine! The animated group, full in the light of the
lamps--girls and young men in the frank familiarity of the family
interrupting each other, contradicting each other, discussing and
arguing--was as charming a study as a painter could have desired; the
mother in the midst with her pencil in her hand and a sheet of white
paper on the table before her, which threw back the light; and behind,
the lovers stealing in out of the soft twilight shadows, the faint
glimmer of distant sea and sky. He watched it with a strange dull ache
under the pleasure of the father and the painter: the light touching
those graceful outlines, shining in those young eyes, the glimmer of
shining hair, the play of animated features, the soft, dreamlike,
suggestive shadows of the two behind. And yet the precipice yawning,
gaping at their feet, though nobody knew.

“Papa,” said suddenly a small voice in his ear, “I am not going
to-morrow. I want to stay with you.”

“My little Mary! But I am a dull old fellow, not worth staying with.”

“You are sorry about something, papa!”

“Sorry? There are a great many things in the world to be sorry about,”
he said, stroking her brown head. The child had clasped her hands about
his arm, and was nestling close up to him whispering. They were
altogether outside of the lively group at the table. This little
consoler comforted Mr. Sandford more than words could say.

It was thus that the holiday life went on. The young people were always
consulting what to do, making up endless excursions and expeditions,
Mrs. Sandford always explaining for them. What was the use of being at
the seaside if they did not take full advantage of it? What was the use
of coming to a new part of the country if they did not see everything?
Sometimes she went with them, compelled by the addition of various
strangers with whom the girls could not go without a chaperon; sometimes
stayed at home with her husband, calculating where they would be by this
time; whether they had found a pleasant spot for their luncheon; when
they might be expected back. Meanwhile, Mr. Sandford took long solitary
walks--very long, very solitary--along the endless line of the sands,
within sight and sound of the sea. Little Mary and her next brother, the
schoolboy, always started with him; but the fascination of the rocks and
pools was too much for these little people, and the father, not
ill-pleased, went on with a promise of picking them up again on his way
back. He would walk on and on for the whole of the fresh shining
morning, with the sea on one side and the green country on the other,
and all the wonderful magical lights of the sky and water shining as if
for him alone. They beguiled him out of himself with their miraculous
play and shimmer and wealth of heavenly reflection; and sometimes he
seemed to feel a higher sensation still--the feeling as of a silent
great Companion who filled the heavenly space, yet moved with him, an
all-embracing, all-responsive sympathy, till he thought of God coming
down to the cool of the garden and walking with His creatures, and all
his trouble seemed to breathe away in a heavenly hush, which every
little wave repeated, softly lapping at his feet.

But when he came back into the midst of his cheerful family other
subjects got the upper hand. There was not the least harm in the gaiety
that was about him--not the least harm; it was mere exuberance of
youthful life and pleasure. If things had been running their usual
course, and his usual year’s work had been in front of him, Mr. Sandford
said to himself that he too would have come out to the door to see the
children start on their expeditions, as his wife did, with pleasure in
their good looks, and in the family union and happiness. He might have
grumbled a little over Harry’s idleness, or even shaken his head over
the expense; but he too would have liked it--he would have admired his
young ones, and taken pleasure in seeing them happy. But to stand by and
watch all that, and know that presently the revenue which kept it all up
would stop, and the ground be cut from under their feet, sheer down,
like a precipice! Already he had begun to familiarise himself with this
idea. It had a sort of paralysing effect, as well as one of panic and
horror. It is not a thing that happens often. People grow poorer, or
even they get ruined at a blow, but there is generally something
remaining upon which economy will tell; he went over these differences
in his lonely hours, imagining a hundred cases. A merchant, for
instance, who ruins himself by speculation, if he is an honourable man,
has means at his disposal of trying again, or at least can get a
situation in an office (at the worst), where he will still have an
income--a steady income, though it may be small; his friends, and the
people who had business relations with him, would be sure to exert
themselves to secure him that; or if his losses were but partial, of
course nothing could be easier than to retrench and live at a lower
rate. So Mr. Sandford said to himself. But what can a few economies do
when at a critical moment, at a period close at hand, all incoming must
cease, and nothing remain? It did not now give him the violent shock of
sensation which he had felt at first when this fact came uppermost. He
had become accustomed to it. It was not _après moi_, but in three months
or so, the deluge: an end to everything, no half measures, no
retrenchment, but the end. He began to wonder when that time came what
would be done. The house could be sold, and all that was in it, but
where then would they go for shelter? They would have to pay for the
poorest lodgings, and at least there was nothing to pay for the house.
Mr. Sandford was not a man of business, he was a man of few resources;
he did not know what to do, or where to turn when his natural occupation
failed him.

These thoughts went through his mind in a painful round. Three months or
so, and then an end of everything. Three months, and then the precipice
so near that the next step must be over it. Perhaps in other
circumstances, or if he had not been known to be so near the head of his
profession, he might have thought of artists’ work of some other kind
which he could do. He might have tried to illustrate books, to take up
one of the art manufactures; might have become a designer, a decorator,
something that would bring in money. But in this respect he was so
helpless, he knew no more what to do than the most ignorant; his heart
failed him when he tried to penetrate into the darkness of that future.
The only thing that came uppermost was the thought of the insurances,
and of the thousand pounds for each which the children would have. It
was not very much, but still it was something, a something real and
tangible, not like a workman’s wages for work, which may fail in a
moment as soon as he fails to please his employer, or loses his skill,
or grows too old for it. It had never occurred to Mr. Sandford before
how precarious these wages are, how little to be relied on. To think of
a number of people depending for their whole living upon the skill of
one man’s hand, upon the clearness of his sight, the truth of his
instincts, even the fashion of the moment! It seems, when you look at it
in the light of a discovery such as that which he had made, so mad, so
fatal! A thing that may cease in a moment as if it had never been, yet
with all the complicated machinery of life built upon it, based on the
strange theory that it would go on for ever! On the other hand a
thousand pounds is a solid thing; it would be a certainty for each of
them. Harry might go to one of the colonies and get an excellent start
with a thousand pounds in his pocket. Jack would no doubt be startled
into energy by the sense of having something which it would be fatal to
lose, yet which could not be lived upon. A thousand pounds would make
all the difference to Lizzie on her marriage. When he thought of his
wife a quiver of pain went over him, and yet he tried to calculate all
the chances there would be for her. All friends would be stirred in
sympathy for her; they would get her a pension, they would gather round
her: it would be made easy for her to break up this expensive way of
living, and begin on a smaller footing. There would be the house, which
would bring her in a little secure income if it was let. Whatever she
had would be secure--it would be based on something solid, certain--not
on a man’s work, which might lose its excellence or go out of fashion.
He felt himself smile with a kind of pleasure at the contemplation of
this steady certainty--which he never had possessed, which he never
could possess, but which poor Mary, with a pension and the rent of the
house, would at last obtain. Poor Mary! his lip quivered when he thought
of her. He wondered if the children would absorb her interest as much
when he was no longer in the background, whether she would be able to
find in them all that she wanted, and consolation for his absence. It
was not with any sense of blame that this thought went through his mind.
Blame her! oh no. To think of her children was surely a mother’s first
duty. She was not aware that her husband wanted consolation and help
more than they did. How could she know when he did not tell her? And he
felt incapable of telling her. He had meant to do it. When he came he
had intended as soon as possible to prepare her for it, to lead by
degrees to that revelation which could not but be given. But to break in
upon all their innocent gaieties, to stop her as she stood kissing her
hand to the merry cavalcade as they set out, her eyes shining with a
mother’s delight and pride; to call her away from among her pretty
daughters (she, her husband thought the fairest of them all), and their
pleasant babble about pleasures past and to come, and pour black despair
into the cheerful heart, how could he do it, how could any one do it?
Such happiness was sacred. He could not interrupt it, he could not
destroy it; it was pathetic, tragic, beyond words: on the edge of the
precipice! Oh no, no! not now, he could not tell her. Let the holidays
be over, let common life resume again, and then--unless by the grace of
God something else might happen before.

They all noticed, however, that papa was dull--which was the way in
which it struck the young people--that he had no sympathy with their
gaiety, that he was “grumpy,” which was what it came to. Lizzie thought
that this probably arose from dissatisfaction with her marriage, and
was indignant. “If he doesn’t think Lance good enough, I wonder what
would please him. Did he expect one of the princes to propose to me?”
she cried.

“Oh, Lizzie, my love, don’t speak so of your father!”

“Well, mamma, he should not look at us so,” cried the girl.

Mrs. Sandford herself was a little indignant too. Her sympathies were
all with the children. She saw disapproval in his subdued looks, and was
ready at any moment to spring to arms in defence of her children. And
indeed sometimes, in his great trouble, which no one divined, Mr.
Sandford would sometimes become impatient.

“I wish,” he would say, “that Jack would do something--does he never do
anything at all? It frets me to see a young man so idle.”

“My dear Edward!” cried his wife, “it is the Long Vacation. What should
he have to do?”

“And Harry?” Mr. Sandford said.

“Poor boy! You know he would give his little finger to have anything to
do. He has nothing to do. How can he help that? When we go back to town
you must really put your shoulder to the wheel. Among all your friends
surely, surely, something could be got for Harry,” said his mother, thus
turning the tables. “And in the meantime,” she added, “to get all the
health he can, and the full good of the sea, is certainly the best thing
the poor fellow could do.”

What answer could be made to this? Mr. Sandford went out for his
walk--that long silent walk, in which the great Consoler came down from
amid all the silvery lights and shining skies, and walked with him in
the freshness of the morning, all silent in tenderness and great
solemnity and awe.




CHAPTER VI.


“Unless, by the grace of God, something should happen”--that was what he
kept saying to himself when he reflected on the disclosure which must be
made when the seaside season was over. The great events of life rarely
happen according to our will. A man cannot die when he wishes it, though
there should be every argument in favour of such an event, and its
advantages most palpable. The moment passes in which that conclusion
would have all the force and satisfactory character of a great tragedy,
and a dreary postscript of existence drivels on, destructive of all
dignity and appropriateness. We live when we should do much better to
die, and we die sometimes when every circumstance calls upon us to live.

Most people will think that it was a very dreary hope that moved Mr.
Sandford’s mind--perhaps even that it was not the expedient of a brave
man to desire to leave his wife and children to endure the change and
the struggle from which he shrank in his own person. But this was not
how it appeared to him. He thought, and with some reason, that the
change which becomes inevitable on the death of the head of a house is
without humiliation, without the pang of downfall which would be
involved in an entire reversal of life which had not that excuse; he
thought that everybody who knew him would regret the change, and that
every effort would be made to help those who were left behind. It would
be no shame to them to accept that help; it would seem to them a tribute
to his position rather than pity for them. His wife would believe that
her husband, a great painter, one of the first of the day, had fully
earned that recognition, and would be proud of the pension or the money
raised for her as of a monument in his honour. And then the insurances.
There could be no doubt, he said to himself, with a rueful smile, that
so much substantial money would be much better to have than a man who
could earn nothing, who had become incapable, whose work nobody wanted.
He had no doubt whatever that it would be by far the best solution. It
would rouse the boys by a sharp and unmistakable necessity; it might, he
thought, be the making of the boys, who had no fault in particular
except the disposition to take things easily, which was the weakness of
this generation. And as for the others, they would be taken care of--no
doubt they would be taken care of. Their condition would appeal to the
kindness of every friend who had ever bought a “Sandford” or thought it
an honour to know the painter. He would even himself be restored to
honour and estimation by the act of dying, which often is a very
ingratiating thing, and makes the public change its opinion. All these
arguments were so strongly in favour of it that to think there was no
means of securing it depressed Mr. Sandford’s mind more than all. By the
grace of God. But it is certain that the Disposer of events does not
always see matters as His creatures see them. No one can make sure,
however warmly such a decree might be wished for, or even prayed for,
that it will be given. If only that would happen! But it was still more
impossible to secure its happening than to open a new market for the
pictures, or cause commissions to pour in again.

It may be asked whether Mr. Sandford’s conviction, which was so strong
on this subject, ever moved him to do anything to bring about his
desire. It was impossible, perhaps, that the idea should not have
crossed his mind--

    “When we ourselves can our demission make
     With a bare bodkin.”

And we can scarcely say that it was, like Hamlet, the fear of something
after death that restrained him. It was a stronger sentiment still. It
was the feeling that to give one’s self one’s dismissal is quite a
different thing. It is a flight--it is a running away; all the arguments
against the selfishness of desiring to leave his wife and children to a
struggle from which he had escaped came into action against that. What
would be well if accomplished by the grace of God would be miserable if
done by the will of the man who might be mistaken in his estimate of the
good it would do. And then another practical thought, more tragical than
any in its extreme materialism and matter-of-fact character, it would
vitiate the insurances! If the children were to gain nothing by his
death, then it would certainly be better for them that he should live.
On that score there could be no doubt. This made suicide as completely
out of the question from a physical point of view as it was already
from a spiritual. He could not discharge himself from God’s service on
earth, though he should be very thankful if God would discharge him; and
he could not do anything to endanger the precious provision he had made
for his family. It can scarcely be said that Mr. Sandford considered
this case at leisure or with comparison of the arguments for and
against, for his decision was instinctive and immediate; nevertheless
the idea floated uppermost sometimes in the surging and whirl up and
down of many thoughts, but always to be dismissed in the same way.

Two or three weeks had passed in this way when one evening Mr. Sandford
received a letter from Daniells, the dealer, inviting him to join a
party on the Yorkshire moors. Daniells was well enough off to be able to
deny himself nothing. He was not a gentleman, yet the sports that
gentlemen love were within reach of his wealth, and gentlemen not so
well off as he showed much willingness to share in his good things. Some
fine people whose names it was a pleasure to read were on his list, and
some painters who were celebrated enough to eclipse the fine people.
That all these should be gathered together by a man who was as ignorant
as a pig, and not much better bred, was wonderful; but so it was.
Perhaps the fact that Daniells was really at heart a good fellow had
something to do with it: but even had this not been the case, it is
probable that he could still have found guests to shoot on his moor, and
eat the birds they had shot. Mr. Sandford was no sportsman, and at first
he had little inclination to accept. It was his wife who urged him to do
so.

“You are not enjoying Broadbeach as you usually do,” she said; “you are
bored by it. Oh, don’t tell me, Edward, I can see it in your eyes.”

“If you think so, my dear, no denial of mine----”

“No,” she said, shaking her head; “nothing you say will change my
opinion. I am dreadfully sorry, for I am fond of the place; but I have
made up my mind already never to come here again: for you are bored--it
is as plain as possible: you want a change: you must go.”

“It is not much of a change to visit Daniells,” said Mr. Sandford.

“Oh, it isn’t Daniells; it’s the company, and the distance, and all you
will find there. I have no objection to Mr. Daniells, Edward.”

“Nor I; he is a good fellow in spite of his ’h’s.’”

“I don’t care about his ’h’s.’ He’s very hospitable and very friendly,
and all the nice people go to him. I saw in the papers that Lord Okeham
was there. You might be able to speak a word for Harry.”

Mr. Sandford smiled. “I am to go, then, as a business speculation,” he
said; but his smile faded away very soon, for he reflected that Lord
Okeham was the first to give him that sensation of being wanted no
longer, of having nobody to employ him, which had risen to such a tragic
height since then.

“Don’t laugh,” said his wife. “I do think indeed it is your
duty--anything that may help on the children; and you do like Mr.
Daniells, Edward.”

“Yes, I do like Daniells; he is a very good fellow.”

“And the change will do you good. You must go.”

It was arranged so almost without any voluntary action on his part. His
wife’s anxiety that he should “speak a word for Harry” seemed to him
half-pathetic, half-ridiculous in what he knew to be the position of
affairs; but then she did not know. It can scarcely be said that it was
other than a relief to him to leave his family to their own
light-hearted devices, or that the young ones were not at least
half-pleased when he went away. “Papa was not a bit like himself,” they
said; probably it was because the heat was too much for him (he
preferred cold weather), and the freshness of the moors would put him
all right. Mrs. Sandford was by no means willing to confess to herself
that she, too, was relieved by her husband’s departure. It was the first
time she had ever been conscious of that feeling in thirty years of
married life; but she, too, said that he would be the better of the
freshness of the moors, and they all gave themselves up to “fun” with a
new rush of pleasure when his grave countenance was away.

“I am sure he did not mean it,” said Lizzie, “but I could not help
feeling that it was poor Lance that was the cause.”

“Nothing of the sort, my dear,” said Mrs. Sandford. “Your father would
have told you if he had any objections. No; I know what it is; he is
very anxious about the boys--and so am I.”

No one, however, who had seen her among them could have believed that
Mrs. Sandford was very anxious. She was so glad that they should enjoy
themselves. Afterwards, when the holidays were over, when they were all
back in town again, then something, no doubt, must be done about Harry.
He was very thoughtless, to be sure; he took no trouble about what was
going to happen to him. Mrs. Sandford threw off any shade of distress,
however, by saying to herself that now his father was fully roused to
the necessity of doing something, now that he was about to meet Lord
Okeham and other influential people, something _must_ be found for
Harry, and then all would go well. But the look in her husband’s eyes
haunted her, nevertheless, for the rest of the day. She had gone to the
railway with him to see him off, as she always did, and when the train
was just moving, he looked at her, waving his hand to her. The look in
his eyes was so strange and so sad, that Mrs. Sandford felt disposed to
rush after her husband by the next train. Failing that, she drew her
veil over her face as she turned away and shed tears, she could not tell
why, as if he had been going away never to return. How ridiculous! how
absurd! when he was only a little out of sorts and sure to be set right
by the freshness of the moors. The impression very soon wore out, and
the young people had already organised a little impromptu dance for the
evening, which gave Mrs. Sandford plenty to do.

“It looks a little like taking advantage of your father’s absence--as if
you were glad he was gone.”

“Not at all,” they all cried. “What a dreadful idea! The only thing is
that it would have bored him horribly; otherwise,” added Harry, “we are
always glad of my father’s company,” with an air of protection and
patronage which made the others laugh. And Mrs. Sandford keenly enjoyed
the dance, and felt it better that her husband’s face, never so grave
before, should not be there to over-shadow the evening’s entertainment.
He would be so much more in his element discussing light and shade with
the other R.A.s, or talking a little moderate politics with Lord Okeham,
or breathing in the freshness of the moors.

And he did like the freshness of the moors, and the talk of his brother
artists, and the discussions among the men. It was entirely a man’s
party, and perhaps a very domestic man like Mr. Sandford, a little
neglected amid the exuberances of a young family, his very wife drawn
away from him by the exigencies of their amusements, is specially open
to the occasional refreshment of a party of his fellows, when congenial
pursuits and matured views, and something of a like experience--at all
events something which is a real experience of life--draw individuals
together. The “sport” of the painters was apt to be interrupted by
realisations of the “effects” about them, and by discussions on various
artistic-scientific points which only masters in the art could settle;
and that semi-professional flavour of the party was extremely
interesting to the other men, the public personages and society
magnates, who found it very piquant to be thrown amid the painters, and
who were inspired thereby to talk their best, and tell their most
entertaining stories. No atmosphere of failure accompanied Mr. Sandford
into this circle, which was kept hilarious by the host’s jovialities and
social mistakes. If anybody knew that Daniells kept in his inner room
three “Sandfords” which he could not sell, there was no hint of that
knowledge in anything that was said, or in the manner of the other
painters towards their fellow, to whom all appealed as to as great an
authority as could be found on all questions of art. He was restored,
thus, to the position which, indeed, nobody could take from him, though
he should never sell a picture again. It soothed him to feel and see
that, to all his brethren, he was as much as ever one of the first
painters of his time, and to give his opinion and sustain it with the
experience of his long professional life, and much experiment in art. A
forlorn hope had been in his mind that Daniells might have some good
news for him; that he might say some day, “That was all a false alarm,
old man--I’ve sold the pictures;” but this unfortunately did not come to
pass. Daniells never said it was a false alarm; he even said some things
in his rough but not unkindly way which to Mr. Sandford’s ear, quickened
by trouble, confirmed the disaster; but perhaps Daniells, who had no
particular delicacy of perception, did not intend this.

The change, however, did Mr. Sandford a great deal of good: though
sometimes, when he found himself alone, the settled shadow of calamity
which had closed upon his life, and which must soon be known to all,
came over him with almost greater force than at first. It was but seldom
that he was alone, when he was indoors: yet now and then he would find
himself on the moors in the sun-setting, when the western sky was still
one blaze of yellow or orange light, varied by bands of cloudy red, with
the low hills and sweeps of moor standing black against that waning
brightness which, magnificent as it was, sent out little light. Mr.
Sandford did not compare his own going out of practical life and
possibility, yet preservation of a glow of fame which neither warmed nor
enlightened, with that show in the west. People seldom see allegories of
their own disaster. But as he strayed along with the sense of dreariness
in his heart which the dead and spectral aspect of hill and tree was so
well calculated to give, his own circumstances came back to him in
tragic glimpses. He thought of the gay group he had left behind, the
heedless young creatures singing and dancing on the edge of the
precipice, and of the peaceful home lying silent awaiting them, to which
they had no doubt of returning, with all its security of comfort and
peace, but on the edge of the precipice too. And he thought of Jack’s
fee, his two guineas, which they had all taken as the best joke in the
world, and of Lizzie, who was to have fifty pounds a year from her
father, and of Harry, quite happy and content on his schoolboy
allowance; and all this going on as if it were the course of nature,
unchangeable as the stars or the pillars of the earth. These things
glided before him as he looked over all the inequalities of the moor
standing black against the western sky. They were the true facts about
him, notwithstanding that in the shelter of this momentary pause he only
felt them as at a distance, and less strongly than before realised the
ease it would bring if by the grace of God something happened--before----

It was the time of the year when there are various race meetings in the
north, and Mr. Daniells had planned to carry his party to the most
famous of them. He had his landau and a brake, royally charged with
provisions, and filled with his guests. Mr. Sandford had done his best
to get off this unnecessary festivity, for which he had little taste.
But all his friends, who by this time had begun to perceive that his
spirits were not in their usual equable state, resisted and protested.
He must come, they said: to leave one behind would spoil the party; he
was not to be left alone with all the moorland effects to steal a march
upon the other painters. And he had not sufficient energy to stand
against their remonstrances. It was easier to yield, and he yielded. The
race was not unamusing. Even with all his preoccupation, he took a
little pleasure in it, more or less, as most Englishmen do: though it
glanced across his mind that somebody might say afterwards, “Sandford
was there, amusing himself on the edge of the precipice.” These vague
voices and glimpses of things were not enough to stand against the
remonstrances and banter of his friends: and after all, what did it
matter? The plunge over the precipice is not less terrible because you
may have performed a dance of despair on the edge. It was about sunset
on a lovely September evening when the party set out on their return
home. They were merry; not that there had been any excess or indulgence
unbecoming of English gentlemen. Daniells, it is true, who was not a
gentleman, had, perhaps, a little more champagne under his belt than was
good for him. But his guests were only merry, talking a little more
loudly than usual about the events of the day and the exploits of the
favourite, and settling some moderate bets which neither harmed nor
elated any one. Mr. Sandford, who had not betted, was the most silent
of party; the lively talk of the others left him free to retire to his
own thoughts. He had got rather into a tangle of dim calculations about
his insurances, and how the money would be divided, when somebody
suddenly called out “Hallo! we’ve got off the road!”

For some time Mr. Sandford was the only one who paid any attention to
this statement. Looking out with a little start, he saw the same scene
against which his musings had taken form on previous nights. A sky
glowing with a stormy splendour, deep burning orange on the horizon
rising through zones of yellow to the daffodil sky above, every object
standing out black in the absence of light; not the hedgerows and white
line of the road alone, but the blunt inequalities of the moor, here a
lump of gorse or gnarled hawthorn bush, there a treacherous hollow with
a gleam of water gathered as in a cup. The coachman and grooms had not
been so prudent as their masters; their potations had been heavier than
champagne. How they had left the road and got upon the moor could never
be discovered. It was partly the perplexing glow above and blackness
below, partly the fumes of a long day’s successive drinkings in their
brains; partly, perhaps, as one of the passengers thought, something
else. The horses had taken the unusual obstacles on their path with
wonderful steadiness at first, but by the time the attention of the
gentlemen was fully attracted to what was happening, the coachman had
altogether lost control of the kicking and plunging animals. The man was
not too far gone to have driven home by the road, but his brain was
incapable of any effort to meet such an emergency. He began to flog the
horses wildly, to swear at them, to pull savagely at the reins. The
groom jumped down to rush to their heads, and in doing so, as they made
a plunge at the moment, fell on the roadside, and in a moment more was
left behind as the terrified horses dashed on. By this time everybody
was roused, and the danger was evident. Mr. Sandford sat quite still; he
was not learned about horses, while many of his companions were. One of
them got on to the box beside the terrified coachman to try what could
be done, the others gave startled and sometimes contradictory
suggestions and directions. He was quite calm in the tumult of alarm and
eager preparation for any event. He was sensible, profoundly sensible,
of the wonderful effect of the scene: the orange glow which no pigments
in the world could reproduce, the blackness of the indistinguishable
objects which stood up against it like low dark billows of a motionless
sea. The shocks of the jolting carriage affected him little, any more
than the shouts of the alarmed and excited men. He did not even remark,
then, that some sprang off and that others held themselves ready to
follow. His sensations were those of perfect calm. He thought of the
precipice no more, nor even of the insurances. Some one shook him by the
shoulder, but it did not disturb him. The effect was wonderful; the
orange growing intense, darker, the yellow light pervading the
illuminated sky. And then a sudden wild whirl, a shock of sudden
sensation, and he saw or felt no more.




CHAPTER VII.


Presently the light came back to Mr. Sandford’s eyes. He was lying upon
the dry heather on the side of the moor, the brown seed-pods nestling
against his cheek, the yellow glow in the west, to which his eyes
instinctively turned, having scarcely faded at all since he had looked
at it from the carriage. A confused sound of noises, loud speaking, and
moans of pain reached him where he lay, but scarcely moved him to
curiosity. His first sensation was one of curious ease and security. He
did not attempt to budge, but lay quite peacefully smiling at the
sunset, like a child. His head was confused, but there was in it a vague
sense of danger escaped, and of some kind of puzzled deliverance from he
knew not what, which gave the strangest feeling of soothing and rest. He
felt no temptation to jump up hastily, to go to the help of the people
who were moaning, or to inquire into the accident, as in another case he
would have done. He lay still, quite at his ease, hearing these voices
as if he heard them not, and smiling with a confused pleasure at the
glow of orange light in the sky.

He did not know how long it was till some one knelt down and spoke to
him anxiously. “Sandford, are you badly hurt? Sandford, my dear fellow,
do you know me? Can you speak to me?”

He burst into a laugh at this address.

“Speak to you? Know you? What nonsense! I am not hurt at all. I am quite
comfortable.”

“Thank God!” said the other. “Duncan, I fear, has a broken leg, and the
coachman is---- It was his fault, the unfortunate wretch. Give me your
hand, and I’ll help you to get up.”

To get up? That was quite a different matter. He did not feel the least
desire to try. He felt, before trying and without any sense of alarm,
that he could not get up; then said to himself that this was nonsense
too, and that to lie there, however comfortably, when he might be
helping the others, was not to be thought of. He gave his hand
accordingly to his friend, and made an effort to rise. But it would have
been as easy (he said to himself) for a log of wood to attempt to rise.
He felt rather like that, as if his legs had turned to wood--not stone,
for that would have been cold and uncomfortable. “I don’t know how it
is,” he said, still smiling, “but I can’t budge. There’s nothing the
matter with me, I’m quite easy and comfortable, but I can’t move a limb.
I’ll be all right in a few minutes. Look after the others. Never mind
me.” He thought the face of the man who was bending over him looked
strangely scared, but nothing more was said. A rug was put over him and
one of the cushions of the carriage under his head, and there he lay,
vaguely hearing the groans of the man whose leg was broken as
(apparently) they moved him, and all the exclamations and questions and
directions given by one and another. What was more wonderful was the
dying out of that wild orange light in the sky. It paled gradually, as
if it had been glowing metal, and the cold night air breathing on it had
paled and dwindled that ineffectual fire. A hundred lessening tints and
tones of colour--yellows and faint greens, with shades of purple and
creamy whiteness breaking the edges--melted and shimmered in the
distance. It was like an exhibition got up for him alone, relieved by
that black underground, now traversed by gigantic ebony figures of a
horse and man, moving irregularly across the moor. A star came out with
a keen blue sparkle, like some power of heaven triumphant over that
illumination of earth. What a spectacle it was! And all for him alone!

The next thing he was conscious of was two or three figures about
him--one the doctor, whose professional touch he soon discovered on his
pulse and his limbs. “We are going to lift you. Don’t take any trouble;
it will give you no pain,” some one said. And before he could protest,
which he was about to do good-humouredly, that there was no occasion, he
found himself softly raised upon some flat and even surface, more
comfortable, after all, than the lumps of the heather. Then there was a
curious interval of motion along the road, no doubt, though all he saw
was the sky with the stars coming gradually out; neither the road nor
his bearers, except now and then a dark outline coming within the line
of his vision; but always the deep blue of the mid sky shining above.
The world seemed to have concentrated in that, and it was not this
world, but another world.

He remembered little more, except by snatches; an unknown
face--probably the doctor’s--looking exceedingly grave, bending over
him; then Daniells’ usually jovial countenance with all the lines
drooping and the colour blanched out of it, and a sound of low voices
talking something over, of which he could only make out the words
“Telegraph at once;” then, “Too late! It must not be too late. She must
come at once.” He wondered vaguely who this was, and why there should be
such a hurry. And then, all at once, it seemed to him that it was
daylight and his wife was standing by his bedside. He had just woke up
from what seemed a very long, confused, and feverish night--how long he
never knew. But when he woke everything was clear to him. Unless, by the
grace of God, something were to happen---- Something was about to
happen, by the grace of God.

“Mary!” he cried, with a flush of joy. “You here!”

“Of course, my dearest,” she said, with a cheerful look, “as soon as I
heard there had been an accident.”

He took her hand between his and drew her to him. “This was all I
wanted,” he said. “God is very good; He gives me everything.”

“Oh, Edward!” This pitiful protest, remonstrance, appeal to heaven and
earth--for all these were in her cry--came from her unawares.

“Yes,” he said, “my dear, everything has happened as I desired. I
understand it all now. I thought I was not hurt; now I see. I am not
hurt, I am killed, like the boy--don’t you remember?--in Browning’s
ballad. Don’t be shocked, dear. Why shouldn’t I be cheerful? I am
not--sorry.”

“Oh, Edward!” she cried again, the passion of her trouble exasperated by
his composure; “not to leave--us all?”

He held her hand between his, smiling at her. “It was what I wanted,” he
said--“not to leave you; but don’t you believe, my darling, there must
be something about that leaving which is not so dreadful, which is made
easy to the man who goes away? Certainly, I don’t want to leave you; but
it’s so much for your good--for the children’s good----”

“Oh, never, Edward, never!”

“Yes; it’s new to you, but I’ve been thinking about it a long time--so
much that I once thought it would almost have been worth the while, but
for the insurances, to have----”

“Edward!” She looked at him with an agonised cry.

“No, dear--nothing of the kind. I never would, I never could have done
it. It would have been contrary to nature. The accident--was without any
will or action of mine. By the grace of God----”

“Edward, Edward! Oh, don’t say that; by His hand, heavy, heavy upon us!”

“It is you that should not say that, Mary. If you only knew, my dear. I
want you to understand so long as I am here to tell you----”

“He must not talk so much,” said the voice of the doctor behind; “his
strength must be husbanded. Mrs. Sandford, you must not allow him to
exhaust himself.”

“Doctor,” said Mr. Sandford, “I take it for granted you’re a man of
sense. What can you do for me? Spin out my life by a few more feeble
hours. Which would you rather have yourself? That, or the power of
saying everything to the person you love best in the world?”

“Let him talk,” said the doctor, turning away; “I have no answer to
make. Give him a little of this if he turns faint. And send for me if
you want me, Mrs. Sandford.”

“Thanks, doctor. That is a man of sense, Mary. I feel quite well, quite
able to tell you everything.”

“Oh, Edward, when that is the case, things cannot be so bad! If you will
only take care, only try to save your strength, to keep up. Oh, my dear!
The will to get well does so much! Try! try! Edward, for the love of
God.”

“My own Mary: always believing that everything’s to be done by an
effort, as all women do. I am glad it is out of my power. If I were in
any pain there might be some hope for you, but I’m in no pain. There’s
nothing the matter with me but dying. And I have long felt that was the
only way.”

“Dying?--not when you were with us at the sea?”

“Most of all then,” he said, with a smile.

“Oh, Edward, Edward! and I full of amusements, of pleasure, leaving you
alone.”

“It was better so. I am glad of every hour’s respite you have had. And
now you’ll be able easily to break up the house, which would have been a
hard thing and a bitter downfall in my lifetime. It will be quite
natural now. They will give you a pension, and there will be the
insurance money.”

“I cannot bear it,” she cried wildly. “I cannot have you speak like
this.”

“Not when it is the utmost ease to my mind--the utmost comfort----”

She clasped her hands firmly together. “Say anything you wish, Edward.”

“Yes, my poor dear.” He was very, very sorry for his wife. It burst upon
her without preparation, without a word of warning. Oh, he was sorry for
her! But for himself it was a supreme consolation to pour it all forth,
to tell her everything. “If I were going to be left behind,” he said,
soothingly, “my heart would be broken: but it is softened somehow to
those that are going away. I can’t tell you how. It is, though; it is
all so vague and soft. I know I’ll lose you, Mary, as you will lose me,
but I don’t feel it. My dearest, I had not a commission, not one. And
there are three pictures of mine unsold in Daniells’ inner shop. He’ll
tell you if you ask him. The three last. That one of the little Queen
and her little Maries, that our little Mary sat for, that you liked so
much, you remember? It’s standing in Daniells’ room; three of them. I
think I see them against the wall.”

“Edward!”

“Oh no, my head is not going. I only _think_ I see them. And it was the
merest chance that the ‘Black Prince’ sold; and not a commission, not a
commission. Think of that, Mary. It is true such a thing has happened
before, but I never was sixty before. Do you forget I am an old man, and
my day is over?”

“No, no, no,” she cried with passion; “it is not so.”

“Oh yes; facts are stubborn things--it is so. And what should we have
done if our income had stopped in a moment, as it would have done? A
precipice before our feet, and nothing, nothing beyond. Now for you, my
darling, it will be far easier. You can sell the house and all that is
in it. And they will give you a pension, and the children will have
something to begin upon.”

“Oh, the children!” she cried, taking his hand into hers, bowing down
her face upon it. “Oh, Edward, what are the children between you and
me?” She cast them away in that supreme moment; the young creatures all
so well, so gay, so hopeful. In her despair and passion she flung their
crowding images from her--those images which had forced her husband from
her heart.

He laughed a low, quiet laugh. “God bless them,” he said; “but I like to
have you all to myself, you and me only, for the last moment, Mary. You
have been always the best wife that ever was--nay, I won’t say have
been--you are my dear, my wife. We don’t understand anything about
widows, you and I. Death’s nothing, I think. It looks dreadful when
you’re not going. But God manages all that so well. It is as if it were
nothing to me. Mary, where are you?”

“Here, Edward, holding your hand. Oh, my dear, don’t you see me?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, with a faint laugh, as if ashamed at some mistake
he had made, and put his other hand over hers with a slight groping
movement. “It’s getting late,” he said; “it’s getting rather dark. What
time is it? Seven o’clock? You’ll not go down to dinner, Mary? Stay with
me. They can bring you something upstairs.”

“Go down? Oh, no, no. Do you think I would leave you, Edward?” She had
made a little pause of terror before she spoke, for, indeed, it was
broad day, the full afternoon sunshine still bright outside, and nothing
to suggest the twilight. He sighed again--a soft, pleasurable sigh.

“If you don’t mind just sitting by me a little. I see your dear face in
glimpses, sometimes as if you had wings and were hovering over me. My
head’s swimming a little. Don’t light the candles. I like the
half-light; you know I always did. So long as I can see you by it, Mary.
Is that a comfortable chair? Then sit down, my love, and let me keep
your hand, and I think I’ll get a little sleep.”

“It will do you good,” said the poor wife.

“Who knows?” he said, with another smile. “But don’t let them light the
candles.”

Light the candles! She could see, where she sat there, the red sunshine
falling in a blaze upon a ruddy heathery hill, and beating upon the dark
firs which stood out like ink against that background. There is perhaps
nothing that so wrings the heart of the watcher as this pathetic mistake
of day for night which betrays the eyes from which all light is
failing. He lay within the shadow of the curtain, always holding her
hand fast, and fell asleep--a sleep which, for a time, was soft and
quiet enough, but afterwards got a little disturbed. She sat quite
still, not moving, scarcely breathing, that she might not disturb him;
not a tear in her eye, her whole being wound up into an external calm
which was so strangely unlike the tumult within. And she had forsaken
him--left him to meet calamity without her support, without sympathy or
aid! She had been immersed in the pleasures of the children, their
expeditions, their amusements. She remembered, with a shudder, that it
had been a little relief to get him away, to have their dance
undisturbed. Their dance! Her heart swelled as if it would burst. She
had been his faithful wife since she was little more than a child. All
her life was his--she had no thought, no wish, apart from him. And yet
she had left him to bear this worst of evils alone!

Mrs. Sandford dared not break the sacred calm by a sob or a sigh. She
dared not even let the tears come to her eyes, lest he should wake and
be troubled by the sight of them. What thoughts went through her mind as
she sat there, not moving! Her past life all over, which, until that
telegram came, had seemed the easy tenor of every day; and the future,
so dark, so awful, so unknown--a world which she did not understand
without him.

After an interval he began to speak again, but so that she saw he was
either asleep still or wandering in those vague regions between
consciousness and nothingness. “All against the wall--with the faces
turned,” he said. “Three--all the last ones: the one my wife liked so.
In the inner room: Daniells is a good fellow. He spared me the sight of
them outside. Three--that’s one of the perfect numbers--that’s--I could
always see them: on the road and on the moor, and at the races: then--I
wonder--all the way up--on the road to heaven? no, no. One of the
angels--would come and turn them round--turn them round. Nothing like
that in the presence of God. It would be disrespectful--disrespectful.
Turn them round--with their faces----” He paused; his eyes were closed,
an ineffable smile came over his mouth. “He--will see what’s best in
them,” he said.

After this for a time silence reigned, broken only now and then by a
word sometimes unintelligible. Once his wife thought she caught
something about the “four square walls in the new Jerusalem,” sometimes
tender words about herself, but nothing clear. It was not till night
that he woke, surprising them with an outcry as to the light, as he had
previously spoken about the darkness.

“You need not,” he said, “light such an illumination for me--_al giorno_
as the Italians say; but I like it--I like it. Daniells--has the soul of
a prince.” Then he put out his hands feebly, calling “Mary! Mary!” and
drew her closer to him, and whispered a long, earnest communication; but
what it was the poor lady never knew. She listened intently, but she
could not make out a word. What was it? What was it? Whatever it was, to
have said it was an infinite satisfaction to him. He dropped back upon
his pillows with an air of content indescribable, and silent pleasure.
He had done everything, he had said everything. And in this mood slept
again, and woke no more.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Sandford’s previsions were all justified. The house was sold to
advantage, at what the agent called a fancy price, because it had been
his house--with its best furniture undisturbed. Everything was
miserable enough indeed, but there was no humiliation in the breaking up
of the establishment, which was evidently too costly for the widow. She
got her pension at once, and a satisfactory one, and retired with her
younger children to a small house, which was more suited to her
circumstances. And Lord Okeham, touched by the fact that Sandford’s
death had taken place under the same roof, in a room next to his own
(though that, to be sure, in an age of competition and personal merit
was nothing), found somehow, as a Cabinet Minister no doubt can if he
will, a post for Harry, in which he got on just as well as other young
men, and settled down into a very good servant of the State. And Jack,
being thus suddenly sobered and called back to himself, and eager to get
rid of the intolerable thought that he, too, had weighed upon his
father’s mind, and made his latter days more sad, took to his profession
with zeal, and got on, as no doubt any determined man does when he
adopts one line and holds by it. The others settled down with their
mother in a humbler way of living, yet did not lose their friends, as it
is common to say people do. Perhaps they were not asked any longer to
the occasional “smart” parties to which the pretty daughters and
well-bred sons of Sandford the famous painter, who could dispense
tickets for Academy soirées and private views, were invited, more or
less on sufferance. These failed them, their names falling out of the
invitation books; but what did that matter, seeing they had never been
but outsiders, flattered by the cards of a countess, but never really
penetrating beyond the threshold?

Mrs. Sandford believed that she could not live when her husband was thus
taken from her. The remembrance of that brief but dreadful time when she
had abandoned him, when the children and their amusements had stolen her
heart away, was heavy upon her, and though she steeled herself to carry
out all his wishes, and to arrange everything as he would have had it
done, yet she did all with a sense that the time was short, and that
when her duty was thus accomplished she would follow him. This softened
everything to her in the most wonderful way. She felt herself to be
acting as his deputy through all these changes, glad that he should be
saved the trouble, and that humiliation and confession of downfall which
was not now involved in any alteration of life she could make, and
fully confident that when all was completed she would receive her
dismissal and join him where he was. But she was a very natural woman,
with all the springs of life in her unimpaired. And by-and-by, with much
surprise, with a pang of disappointment, and yet a rising of her heart
to the new inevitable solitary life which was so different, which was
not solitary at all, but full of the stir and hum of living, yet all
silent in the most intimate and closest circle, Mrs. Sandford recognised
that she was not to die. It was a strange thing, yet one which happens
often: for we neither live nor die according to our own will and
previsions--save sometimes in such a case as that of our painter, to
whom, as to his beloved, God accorded sleep.

And more--the coming true of everything that he had believed. After
doing his best for his own, and for all who depended upon him in his
life, he did better still, as he had foreseen, by dying. Daniells sold
the three pictures at prices higher than he had dreamed of, for a
Sandford was now a thing with a settled value, it being sure that no new
flood of them would ever come into the market. And all went well.
Perhaps with some of us, too, that dying which it is a terror to look
forward to, seeing that it means the destruction of a home, may prove,
like the painter’s, a better thing than living even for those who love
us best. But it is not to every one that it is given to die at the right
moment, as Mr. Sandford had the happiness to do.




THE WONDERFUL HISTORY

OF

MR. ROBERT DALYELL.




CHAPTER I.


It was a September night, rather chilly and dreary, as the evening often
becomes at that season, even when the day has been beautiful. There was
a little cold wailing wind about, like the ghost of an autumn breeze,
which came in puffs of air, only strong enough to dislodge a fluttering
yellow leaf or two, and sometimes with a few drops of rain upon it,
which it dashed in your face with an elfish moan--not a night to walk in
the garden for pleasure. It was, however, a custom with Mr. Dalyell to
smoke his cigar out-of-doors after dinner in all weathers, and Fred, who
was his eldest son, was proud to be his father’s companion and share
this indulgence--too proud to make any opposition to the chill of the
night or the occasional dash of rain. All that was visible from the
windows of the Yalton drawing-room, across which now and then a white
figure would flutter, with a glance out were the red fire-tips of the
two cigars, moving now quickly, now slowly, stopping altogether for a
moment, going on with renewed rapidity--which was papa’s way.

You could not see a prettier old house than Yalton in all the eastern
shires. It had the mixture of French with native Scotch architecture
which distinguishes a period in history. There were turrets, which the
profane called pepper-boxes, at the corners, and lines of many windows
in the commodious, comfortable _corps de logis_, now shining through the
night with cheerful lights. Two terraces stood between the altitude of
the house and the walk in which the father and son were, with lines of
stone balustrades all overgrown by creeping plants and adorned with
great vases in which the garish flowers of autumn were still fully
blooming, though they were unseen in the darkness. On the lower level
was the little temple of a fountain, which was reduced to a small and
broken jet by age and negligence. The scent of the mignonette in the
borders, the faint dripping of the water in the fountain, communicated
to the atmosphere a little half-artificial speciality of character, like
the terraces and great vases, not altogether natural to the locality,
yet not uncongenial in its quaint double nationality. The two dark
figures walking up and down, made visible by those red points, were yet
undistinguishable, save by the fact that one was slim and slight, a
boyish figure, and the other round and solid in the complete development
of the man. The lad had been unfolding to his father the many novelties
and wonders of his first year at the University, with that delightful
force of conviction that such pleasant and wonderful experiences had
never happened to anybody before which is the perennial belief of the
young: while the father listened with that half-amused, half-pensive
sympathy, made up of recollections fond and familiar, and the
half-provoked, half-pleased sensation of amazement at finding those
experiences re-embodied in the person of his son, which is habitual to
the old. But, indeed, to say old is merely to express a comparative
quality, for Mr. Dalyell of Yalton was a man under fifty, in the full
force and vigour of life.

“Ah, yes,” he said, “Fred, it’s fine times for you now, my boy. But you
must remember that life is not made up of bumps and bump-suppers, and
that there are worse things than a proctor waiting for you, perhaps,
round the next corner. I don’t want you not to play--but you must learn
to work a little, too.”

“All right, father,” said Fred; “I’ll pull through. I sha’n’t disgrace
the old house.”

“No,” said Mr. Dalyell. “I don’t suppose you will: but you might perhaps
go a little farther than that.”

“I didn’t think,” said Fred, surprised, “that you intended me to do more
than a good pass. I never supposed there was--any need for hard work.”

“Need? I never said there was need: but it does a young fellow good to
be thought to work: even if it does no more it does that. It’s well for
you to be thought to work, Fred.”

“If that’s all,” said the young man, “I don’t fancy I want to get a
reputation in that way.”

“Then you’re a silly boy,” said his father. “It’s a capital thing to
have a good reputation. You don’t know what it might do for you.”

“Well,” said the lad, with a laugh, “I don’t fancy that matters so much,
so long as you do everything for me, father.”

“That’s just the point, Fred. That’s what I wanted to show you. I
sha’n’t always be here to do everything for you.”

“Why,” said Fred, “you’re almost as young as I am!”

“I’m not particularly old: but no man’s life is secure, however young he
may be; it’s not to be lippened to, as old Janet says. You ought to
contemplate what your position would be if I were taken away. Think what
happens to many a young fellow, Fred, whose father dies--perhaps just
when he is where you are: and he has to stop all his pleasant ways and
turn to, perhaps to work for his mother and the rest, perhaps only to
look after them and take care of them--but at all events to be the head
of the family instead of a careless boy.” Mr. Dalyell had stopped in his
walk to enforce what he said, which was a way he had. “I’ve known a boy
of your age,” he said, “that had to give up everything, and go into an
office, and work like a slave: instead of your bump-suppers, Fred.”

“I’ve heard of such a thing myself,” said Fred; “though you don’t think
much of my experience, father. It happened to Surtees of New, a fellow a
little senior to me. It was awfully hard upon him. He would have been in
the ‘eight’ if he had stayed another year. What he felt most was leaving
the ‘Varsity without getting his blue. But,” added the lad, “if it
matters about what people think, as you were saying, he was thought no
end of for it. He went abroad, I think, to look after some business
there.”

“And dropped, I suppose, never to be heard of more--among his old chums
at least?”

“It was awfully hard upon him,” said Fred, regretfully.

“Well,” said Mr. Dalyell, “that’s what may happen to any one of you
whose fathers are in business. You ought to remember that such a
contingency is always on the cards.”

“Why, father----!” cried Fred. The boy was unwilling to make any
application, to seem to think that there could be anything in their own
circumstances to suggest this conversation: but he threw an involuntary
glance at the house behind him with all its cheerful lights, and at the
dark clouds of trees all round in the distance, which marked the great
extent of the park and woods of Yalton. He did not add a word, and
indeed the whole movement was involuntary--a sort of appeal from the
lugubrious remarks on one side to all these unending signs of wealth on
the other.

“You mean to say there’s Yalton; and though I’m in business, I’m not all
in business,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. “I was not speaking of
ourselves, my boy; but of the vicissitudes of life. I hope there will be
Dalyells of Yalton as long as Edinburgh Castle stands upon a rock; and
one can’t say more than that. Still, there are wonderful changes in
life, and I’d like to think--if you force me to an application--that you
were up to anything that might happen. You’d have to take the command,
you know, Fred,” he added after a moment, knocking the ash off his cigar
against the balustrade of the terrace, with another curious laugh. “Your
dear mother has never been used to anything but to be taken care of. You
had better not bother her by asking advice from her if you should ever
be in that position.”

“I wish you would not say such dreadful things,” said Fred petulantly.
“Why should we talk of what I hope to heaven will never happen?--you
make me quite uncomfortable, papa.”

“Well, my dear boy,” said Mr. Dalyell, “that’s the penalty, don’t you
know, of being grown up--like shaving, and other disadvantages. You
rather like the shaving--which implies an imaginary beard: but you don’t
like to hear of the much more important responsibilities.”

“Shaving’s inevitable,” said Fred, giving a little furtive twirl to an
almost imaginary moustache.

“Oh, is it?” said his father, with a more cheerful laugh. “Not for years
yet; don’t flatter yourself. When do you start for your ball to-morrow?
It’s fine to be an eligible young man, and sought after for all the
dances. That’s a pleasant consequence of being a ‘Varsity man, and heir
of Yalton, eh?”

“Well, father,” said Fred, “seeing I’ve known the Scrymgeours all my
life, we needn’t put it on that ground. Whatever I was--if I was heir to
nothing--it would be the same to them.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Mr. Dalyell, and he breathed a sigh, which somehow
got mingled with the little wail of the wind, and echoed into Fred’s
heart with a poignant suggestion. There was no reason to fear anything,
and he was angry with himself. It was childish and superstitious to
shiver as he did, as if the cold had caught him. There was no occasion
in the world for anything of the sort. He was not a fellow to catch
cold, he said to himself indignantly, nor to have presentiments, both of
which things were equally absurd. There was nothing but prosperity and
peace known in Yalton, and his father had the constitution of an
elephant. But the night was eerie, the horizon had a sort of weird
clearness upon it in the far distance, like a light showing through the
openings of the clouds. The trees stood up black in billows of
half-distinguishable shade, and the hills beyond them marked out their
outlines wistfully against the clearness in the west. It was cold, and
the air breathed of coming winter. A leaf drifting on the wind caught
him on the cheek like a soft blow. Altogether the night was eerie, wild,
full of possibilities. There was no ghost at Yalton; but sometimes old
Janet said there was a sound in the avenue that meant trouble, like a
horseman riding up to the house who never arrived. Fred involuntarily
listened, as if he might have heard that horseman, which was as good as
inviting trouble, but he did not think of that. However, there was no
sound, nor ghost of a sound, except what was purely natural--the wild
bitter wind wailing, driving a few leaves about, and bending, with a
soft swish of the dark unseen foliage, the light branches of the trees.

“Come, let’s go in, Fred; I’ve finished my cigar,” said Mr. Dalyell; and
then, as though a brain wave, as scientific people say, had passed from
one to another--Fred’s unspoken thought of old Janet suggested her to
his father’s mind. They were going up one of the sets of stone steps
which led from one terrace to the other, when Mr. Dalyell suddenly put
his hand on his son’s arm:

“You’ll laugh,” he said, but not himself in a laughing tone, “at what
I’m going to say. But if you should be in any difficulty what to do in
case of my absence, or--or anything of that sort--do you know, Fred,
whom I’d advise you to consult? The last person you would think of,
probably, by yourself--old Janet! You know she’s been about Yalton all
her life. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for any of us--and she’s an
extraordinarily sensible old woman, full of resource, and with a head on
her shoulders----”

“I’m not fond of old Janet,” said Fred sturdily.

“No, none of you are. Your mother never could be got to like her. It’s a
prejudice. She’s been invaluable to me.”

“If it’s all the same to you, father,” said Fred stiffly, “I’d rather
not turn to an old wife for advice, an old nurse. What can she know? Of
course your good opinion goes a very long way----”

“For or against? I’m afraid, so far as your mother is concerned, it is
rather against. However, we need say no more about it. But, remember! as
King Charles said.”

They had paused on the landing between two flights of stairs. A great
trail of yellow nasturtium, dropping from the vase at the corner, showed
even in the dark a ghost of colour, and thrust its pungent odour into
Fred’s nostril. The faint billows of the trees stretched out dark and
darker over the landscape below, and the cold clear light in the sky
seemed to look on like a spectator who knows far more than the actors
what is and is going to be. Fred once more gave a little shiver, and
elevated his shoulders to his ears.

“You’d better go and take some camphor, boy. You’ve caught cold,” his
father said.

The drawing-room of Yalton was on the first floor, unlike the generality
of country houses, which gave it a great advantage in respect to the
landscape. On the ground floor a great deal of space was taken up with
the hall, which opened into a large portico, and was scarcely light
enough to be made much use of, in a climate where there is seldom too
much sun. It happened, fortunately, that Mrs. Dalyell, who was a nervous
and somewhat fantastic woman, was fond of a great deal of light, so that
the large windows, which made the turreted Scotch house like a wing of
the Louvre, were not displeasing to her. The curtains were but partially
drawn over the central windows even now, so that it was possible to turn
at any moment from the light and warmth of the interior to the wide
landscape out-of-doors, with its wild breadth of sky and wailing winds.
But within it was exceedingly bright with a number of lamps and candles
and that pleasant blaze of a fire which it is an agreeable tradition in
Scotch country houses to keep up in the evening, whether it is wanted or
not. In September it is generally wanted; but it cannot be said there
was any necessity for it on this particular night. The company in the
drawing-room consisted of Mrs. Dalyell, her two daughters, and a
gentleman of middle age and manners very ingratiating and friendly, if a
little formal--Mr. Patrick Wedderburn, than whom no man was more
respected in Edinburgh, a W.S. of the first eminence, learned in the
law, and a favourite everywhere. He belonged, it need scarcely be said,
to a good Scotch family, and was any man’s equal in Scotland, though he
acted as a “man of business” to many of his friends. He was one of the
dearest friends of Robert Dalyell of Yalton, and was a more constant
visitor than any other of the many familiar associates who called the
laird of Yalton “Bob,” and knew him and his affairs to the
finger-points. Pat Wedderburn, as the visitor was commonly called, was
an old bachelor, and therefore had no family to call him to a fireside
centre of his own. He was as much in Yalton as he was in his own
handsome but dull house in Ainslie Place, where, except when he had a
dinner-party, the rooms were so silent, the solitude so serious. Neither
the girls nor their mother made “company” of Mr. Wedderburn. He was
seated in a deep chair, reading the papers while they talked, as if he
were an uncle at the least, and he did not hesitate to interrupt their
conversation now and then by reading out a bit of news or making a
remark. He did not hesitate to correct Susie, who sometimes ventured
upon a big word with which she was not familiar, and used it wrongly, or
to tell Alice that she was a fidget, and could not keep still for five
minutes; and as this was done from behind the newspaper, in the most
accidental manner, it deepened still more the impression that nowhere
could Mr. Wedderburn have been more perfectly at home. The papers, it
may be added--that is to say, the London papers--arrived in Edinburgh in
the evening. The conversation which was going on when Mr. Dalyell came
into the drawing-room was, however, confined to the young people, and
was chiefly on the subject of the Scrymgeour ball, to which Fred was
going next day.

“I think they might have asked me,” said Susie in an aggrieved tone. “I
am just the same age as Lucy Scrymgeour. It isn’t my fault mother, that
you’ve never taken me out yet. I am seventeen and _past_, as everybody
knows.”

“No, it’s not your fault. I am sure you have badgered me enough about
it,” said Mrs. Dalyell; “but though you think you can do anything you
like with me, I have my opinions about some things. And one of them is
that a girl should not go out too soon. People are quite capable of
saying, ten or twenty years hence, ‘Oh, Susie Dalyell, I can tell you
her age to a day! She came out in such a year, and she must have been
nineteen at the least.’ That is exactly how people talk.”

“And if they did,” cries Susie, “what would it matter? Farmer thinks I
look quite eighteen when I have my hair nicely dressed.”

“That is all very well now, my dear; but wait till you are thirty or
thirty-five. You would like to put on a year or two now, but you will
like to take them off at the other end.”

“Let’s hope,” said Mr. Wedderburn from behind his paper, “that she’ll
not be Susie Dalyell then.”

“What difference will that make?” said Susie scornfully. “If I were
forty I should never make a mystery about it. What is the use of trying
to hide it, if you do have one foot in the grave?”

“Mother’s forty--or more,” said Alice, “and nobody would say she had one
foot in the grave.”

“Oh, what does it matter,” cried Susie again, “at that time of life,
when you are medeval and antediluvious? It is now that one minds.”

“Susie, don’t call mamma such dreadful names.”

“Mediæval and antediluvian, Susie”--from behind the paper, in an
undertone.

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Dalyell tartly, “that Mr. Wedderburn thinks that
quite appropriate. Gentlemen always think a girl’s impertinence is
amusing when it’s directed against her mother; but you ought to know
better, Susie, than to hold me up to ridicule. I am sure, whatever else
I may be, I have been a careful mother to you.”

“Oh, mamma! As if I meant anything like that,” cried Susie petulantly,
flinging herself upon her mother. “I only mean you don’t care now. It’s
nothing to you to think of Lucy dancing all night in billows of tulle,
like the girls in the novels, and me going to bed at ten o’clock. They
will only just have begun then. And to think they should have asked
Fred! and me Lucy’s greatest friend and contemporaneous, and friends
with Davie all my life--and that they never thought of asking me--never
even tried! Perhaps if they had asked me--and it’s such an opportunity
and such old friends--you would have let me go.”

“I’ll tell you what, Susie,” said Fred, who had just come in; “I’ll ride
over to-morrow morning first thing and ask them to ask you. I dare say
they will for my sake.”

Susie looked at him for a moment with a flush of hope, and then her face
clouded. “For your sake!” she said, with a sister’s frank contempt. “If
it’s only for your sake, I’ll stay at home. I am not a nobody like that.
I’m Lucy Scrymgeour’s oldest friend. If she doesn’t of her own
account--and Davie too,” cried the girl with an access of
indignation--“it’s more than any one can bear!”

“I would never speak to one of them again,” said Alice, “if it was me.”

“And what good would that do?” cried Susie, with the tear still in her
eye, turning upon her sister. “Lose the ball and a friend too! I suppose
they had some reason. Perhaps there were too many girls already--else
why should they ask Fred? Or, perhaps---- Yes, I’ll speak to Lucy again,
the first time I see her; but I shall be very dignified, and pretend
that I didn’t care a bit.”

“But you couldn’t if you tried; dignified, my dear--that would be rather
difficult.”

“Is there anything in the paper, Pat?” said Mr. Dalyell.

“Not much. But it’s ill talking between a full man and a fasting. I’ve
seen what there is, and you’ve not. Here’s the _Times_. Munro’s in for
that place in the North.”

“Bless my soul! and you call that nothing? Another firebrand, and as
good as two lost in our majority. That’s bad, Pat; that’s bad.”

“I never think anything of a bye-election. They’re all in the nature of
accidents. There’s a good speech of Gladstone’s at one of the Lancaster
towns, and John Bright flaming on the side of peace like a house on
fire.”

“And he says there’s nothing in the paper!” said Mr. Dalyell, as he
dropped into an easy-chair in his turn with the great broad-sheet of the
_Times_ in his hand.

“When gentlemen begin talking politics,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “I always
think it is time for the ladies to retire. But you have begun early
to-night. Are you going into town at your usual hour to-morrow, Robert?
I hope you’ll be home early, for, with Fred away, there will be no man
but only the servants in the house.”

“And what the worse will you be for that, Amelia? There are plenty to
protect you, I hope, if I were never to be seen again.”

“Robert! that’s not a thing to joke about. I never feel safe, you know,
in this big, rambling old house when you’re not here--if it was only the
rats----”

“What could the rats do to you, mother?”

“Hold your peace, Fred!” said Mrs. Dalyell. “I sometimes think of Bishop
Hatto in that poem you used all to be so fond of--and those in the Pied
Piper. If you just heard some of old Janet Macalister’s stories, they
would make your hair stand on end.”

“You’ll be back in time, Bob, not to keep her uneasy,” said Mr.
Wedderburn behind the _Standard_, which he had just taken up, to his
friend behind the _Times_.

Dalyell answered carelessly, “Yes, yes. Why shouldn’t I be back in
time?” Then, with a laugh, to his wife, “You should never mind old
Janet. I dare say you were interfering with some hiding-holes of hers
that she did not want disturbed. She’s a kind of familiar spirit of the
house, that old woman. She knows it better than any of us; and there’s
all sorts of uncanny corners about this house. It would be to keep you
out of the secret chamber that she told you daft stories about the
rats.”

“I don’t believe in any nonsense about secret chambers,” said Mrs.
Dalyell. “That’s all very well in Glamis, and such places: but Yalton’s
not good enough for that.”

“Yalton’s good enough for anything, mamma,” cried Susie, indignant. “I
heard the horseman in the avenue a week ago, as clear as----”

“What’s that you’re saying, Susie?” said Mr. Dalyell sharply.

“Oh!” said the girl tremulously, “I mean the rain pattering in that
place, you know.”

“Susie is always hearing some nonsense,” said her mother. “Gather up
your work and things, children, for it is time you were going to your
beds.”




CHAPTER II.


Mr. Wedderburn went into Edinburgh by the early train, the train which
conveyed all the gentlemen who were business men. But Mr. Dalyell, who
was not exactly a man in business, went in later. He had a great deal to
do with that busy world, but he was not actually in harness with an
office which claimed his daily attention. He was a director of a railway
company, and he had something to do with a great insurance office, and
there were other more speculative concerns in which he was believed to
have an interest: and there were few days in the week in which he did
not go “in,” as everybody said, to Edinburgh; but still it was not a
matter of necessity. He was up earlier than his wont that morning--for
Yalton was not an early house in general--and “pottered about,” as his
wife said fretfully, from his dressing-room to the library and from the
library back to his dressing-room, disturbing her morning’s rest. He
seemed to have a quantity of little things to do. Even after the
breakfast bell had rung he ran twice into the library for something
which he said he had forgotten. “You seem to have as many things to
remember as if you were the Prime Minister,” said Mrs. Dalyell, who had
already poured out his coffee, and who was more annoyed when he left his
breakfast to get cold than by any other of his peccadilloes. “_Robert!_”
she cried from the door in a tone of exasperation, “there will be
nothing fit to eat!” “I am coming, I am coming!” he cried. The curious
thing was that he did not mind if his bacon was cold: but his wife
minded for him and fumed and fretted. “What is the use of trying to get
anything comfortable for your father?” she would say complainingly,
“Well, mother, I like my kidneys hot,” said Fred; “so they’re not thrown
away at least.” Mrs. Dalyell looked at her son as if his tastes were a
matter of much indifference, but softened when she met the lad’s
good-humoured blue eyes. He was not remarkable in appearance, but like
dozens of other Scotch lads all about--light-brown hair, curling so
strongly that it was difficult sometimes to comb it out; nice eyes, with
a smile in them; tolerable features, the nose turned up a little; not a
giant by any means, but well developed, well set up--a natural,
pleasant boy of twenty, not without his failings, and perhaps a little
careless, a little superficial, having had no occasion as yet to fathom
any of the depths of life. He nodded at her over the dish of kidneys
with a smile which was contagious. Mrs. Dalyell was by no means a
light-hearted person. She was easily put out. She did not like anybody
to have a different way of thinking from her own on the points that
interested her. To let your tea stand till it was cold was an offence to
Mrs. Dalyell. As for more serious matters she did not much interfere
with them. That was the gentlemen’s part of the business. To have
breakfast in good condition and attend to the comfort of the house was
hers, which perhaps is a view of the question which will commend itself
to many. In return for this she expected to have a great deal of the
trouble of life taken off her shoulders. She declared constantly that
she knew nothing of business. She preferred to get her money just when
she wanted it, instead of having a banking account of her own, as most
ladies like to have nowadays, or a settled allowance. In short, Mrs.
Dalyell was a woman whose very existence necessitated a husband behind
her to do the rough work and see to the supplies. Within these limits
there could not be a better mistress of a household. And she was
exceedingly annoyed when her husband allowed his breakfast to get cold.
It was a trick of his, of which it was her constant effort to mend him;
but he was seldom so bad as this day.

“Go and tell your father,” she said at last, “that it is almost time for
the train. And to let him go without his breakfast is what I will not
do. So just tell him, once for all, if he does not come at once he must
just give up all thoughts of going in to Edinburgh to-day.”

“Here I am--here I am, Amelia,” said Mr. Dalyell, running in and taking
his seat at table. “What have you got there, Fred? Kidneys!--and this is
bacon.”

“All just as cold as chucky-stones,” said the lady of the house
solemnly.

“You know I don’t mind, my dear. I’ll have a little of that kidney--and
a cup of coffee with plenty of milk. How often am I to tell you you
should never mind me?”

“Just as often as I tell you I will mind you, Robert. Who should be
minded if it’s not the master of the house?”

He cast upon her a look--which Fred, who had nearly but not quite
forgotten the conversation of last night, caught and wondered at with a
vague sense of pain, though his mother did not remark it. There was a
great deal of affection and tenderness in the glance; but something else
that puzzled him. There was trouble in it--but what trouble could there
be in his father’s eyes looking at his mother? There was something in it
which made him say quite inconsequently, looking up from his plateful of
devilled kidney, “You’re not going away anywhere, are you, father?”

Then his father’s eyes fixed on himself with a startled glance: “Away?”
he said. “Where should I be going? and what’s put that into your head?”

Fred replied with the familiar subterfuge of youth: “Oh, nothing!” But
his mind was not satisfied; for that was no answer. And there passed
through his thoughts a vague idea that if, later in the day, there came
a telegram saying that Mr. Dalyell had been obliged to go to London on
business, he would not be surprised.

“Where indeed!” said Mrs. Dalyell. “It’s not the time for business,
which is a comfort: for you can’t be running up to London at a moment’s
notice, as you did in the spring. You would find nobody there.”

“That is just it,” said Mr. Dalyell. And after he had made this
unquestioned observation, he added, “I shall perhaps run down to
Portobello and get a swim. Nothing puts a man right like the sea. I’ll
just take a plunge and be back by the four o’clock train.”

“I hope you’ll have somebody with you; and don’t you be too venturesome
with your plunging and your swimming.”

“Too venturesome on Portobello sands! I’ll get Pat Wedderburn to come
and look after me,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. He laughed with his
lips, but his eyes were quite grave--which was all the more remarkable
since he had laughing eyes, with humorous puckers all about them,
exceedingly ready to light up at such a joke as that of being taken care
of by Pat Wedderburn. He had still half-a-dozen things which kept him
running out and in before he was ready to start, which his way, but
always a source of exasperation to his orderly wife. Finally, when
there was hardly time to catch the train, he dashed upstairs three steps
at a time, explaining that he had forgotten something. Mrs. Dalyell
stood wringing her hands at the open door.

“I wish you had ordered the dog-cart, Fred. He’ll never catch the train.
You should remember your father’s ways, and that this is always what
happens: and then he’ll just fly and get out of breath and
over-heated--the very worst things for him. Dear, dear me! I might have
had more sense. I might have ordered the dog-cart myself, there’s only
ten minutes----”

“If he does lose the train I suppose it won’t matter so much,” said
easy-minded Fred.

“Not if he would think so,” replied the mother, “nothing at all--but
when he sets his mind on a thing, possible or impossible, he will carry
it out. ROBERT!” she cried, in capitals, going to the bottom of the
stairs.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted. His voice came not from the
direction of his room but from the west passage, where he had nothing to
do, a fact which awoke a vague surprise in Mrs. Dalyell’s mind. He came
downstairs “like a tempest,” she said afterwards, making as much noise,
and caught her in his arms, to her great astonishment. “Good-bye, my
dearest, good-bye!” he cried, giving her a loving kiss (“before the
bairns, and that man Foggo looking on!”). “Keep well and don’t distress
yourself about me.” He was gone almost before she could ask him why she
should distress herself about him, flying down the road with Fred after
him, which, indeed, was his usual way of catching a train. She stood at
the door looking after him, and though he was in such a hurry and not a
moment to lose, what did Robert do but turn round and take off his hat
and wave his hand to her! Such nonsense! as if he were going away for
years. She made a sign of impatience, hurrying him on. “Do you think
they will do it this time, Foggo?” she said to the butler, who was also
looking after them. Foggo had been standing ready to help his master on
with his coat. But Mr. Dalyell had time only to snatch it and throw it
over his shoulder, partly because of that unnecessary embrace which had
so confused his wife under the servant’s eyes.

“Oh, ay, ma’am,” said Foggo, “they’ll do it; the maister’s aye just on
the edge--but he’s never missed her yet----”

Mr. Dalyell, when he rushed upstairs, had not gone to his dressing-room
as he proposed to do. He had darted down the west passage, a long vacant
corridor with a few doors of unused bedrooms on one side. He went down
to the end room of all, and opened the door. An old woman in a
tremendous mutch and tartan shawl came forward to meet him. “I have come
to say good-bye, Janet, my woman,” he said, grasping her hand. “And
you’ll remember what you’ve promised.”

“That I will, my bonnie man: if you’re sure you must do it. As long as I
live--but then I, may be, have not very long to live.”

“We’ll have to trust for that,” he said, holding both her hands.

“Could you no trust for other things? I’ve preachit to ye till I’m
weariet, maister Robert! Nobody trusted yet and was disappointed.”

“We’ve gone over all that,” he said. “No, no, there’s no other way. We
can’t ask the Lord for money, Janet.”

“What for no? And now I can scarce say God’s blessing on ye--for how
can I ask His blessing when it’s for a----?”

“No more, Janet, no more. Good-bye!”

“Oh, maister Robert, bide a moment. Do you mind the Psalm:

    ‘If in your heart ye sin regard
     The Lord you will not hear?’

Think of that! How can I bid Him bless ye, when----?”

“Good-bye, my dear old woman, good-bye!”

And it was at this moment that Mrs. Dalyell’s voice calling “Robert!”
came small in the distance up the echoing passage. And in another moment
he was gone.

Mrs. Dalyell went to her kitchen to give her orders to the cook as soon
as her husband was out of sight. She was an excellent housekeeper, and
enjoyed this part of her duties far too much to depute them to any
other, although indeed in the tide of prosperity which Mr. Dalyell’s
business had brought to Yalton she might have had a housekeeper had she
pleased, and a much larger establishment. But she had thrifty instincts
and that distrust of business which old-fashioned ladies used to have,
with an inward conviction that it always collapsed at one time or
another, and that the estate was the sheet-anchor: which had prevented
her ever from launching out into expense. She dismissed the thoughts of
Robert’s unusual embrace--for domestic endearments are sedulously kept
in the background in Scotch houses of the old-fashioned type--and of any
little peculiarity there might have been about him this morning more
than other mornings--from her mind: which it required no effort to do,
for she was not given to investigations below the surface, or reading
between the lines, and a parting kiss (though absurd) was a parting kiss
to Mrs. Dalyell, and it was nothing more. She took pains to order her
husband a very good dinner, with due consideration of his special
likings, which perhaps was as good a thing as she could have done. Then
after luncheon there was Fred to send off in good time, so that he might
not put out any of the Scrymgeours’ arrangements by arriving too late.
He had a seven-miles drive, and never would have recollected to order
the dog-cart in time if his mother had not taken that duty upon herself;
and she likewise cast a glance at his other arrangements to make sure
that his white ties were in good condition and his pumps as they ought
to be--precautions quite unnecessary and rather distasteful to the young
man in his new conviction, acquired at Oxford, that he knew better than
any one what was essential to a perfect turn-out, either for horse or
man. Susie, who was liberated from lessons after luncheon, spent her
time in preparing messages for Lucy Scrymgeour which were intended to
disturb and plant thorns in that young person’s mind. “You can tell her
I never was so surprised in my life as when it came for you and not for
me: for you never were such friends with them as me. But you’re only
asked as a man. They must be badly off for men; though when one thinks
of all the officers in the garrison--and Davie such friends with all of
them! I don’t think you have got any amatory instincts, Fred--for you’ve
no friends but Oxford men; and what good would they be to us if we had a
ball? But you can tell Davie _from me_----”

“Has Davie amatory instincts?” cried Fred. “The little beast--I’ll take
him no messages from you.”

“What on earth is the child talking of?” said Mrs. Dalyell. “Where did
she hear such a word? Amatory!”

“It means friendship,” cried Susie, with a burning blush. “I know--I
know it does! I mean Davie has such lots of friends--and Fred has none;
or at least none that would be of any use if we were to have a ball.”

“But we are not going to have a ball,” said the mother; “it is a great
deal too much trouble. Ask the Scrymgeours what they think a week hence.
The whole house will be turned upside down, and the servants put out of
the way, and everybody made wretched. No, Susie, there will be no ball.”

“Then am I never to come out at all?” said Susie in a voice from which
consternation had driven all the lighter tones. This was too solemn a
thought to be expressed except with the gravity of fate.

“You should present her, mother,” said Fred; “that’s the right thing for
a girl.”

“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “that’s a great trouble too! The gowns
alone would cost about a hundred pounds; and your father, you know,
never stays a day longer in London than he can help--and what would
Susie and me do, two women by ourselves in that great big place?
Besides, to make it worth the while we would need to know a number of
people and get invitations. I’ve often heard of country people, very
well thought of in their own place, that have just been humiliated to
the very dust in London, with nobody to ask them out, or to call on them
or anything. She’ll have to be content with something nearer home.”

“That is all because things are so conventionary and nothing natural,”
said Susie; “that is what they say in all the books. But if papa would
go up with us in his Deputy Lieutenant’s uniform, and knowing such
quantities and quantities of people--and perhaps if you were to tell
Mrs. Wauchope she might speak to the Duchess, and the Duchess would say
just a little word to one of the Princesses--and then perhaps the
Queen----”

“Are you out of your senses, Susie? What do you expect that the Queen
would do?”

“Well! they might say we belonged to D’yell of Yalton that saved the
life of James the Fourth, who is the Queen’s great, great, great (I
don’t know how many greats) grandfather. And if she was passing this
way, you know, mamma, my father would have to come out and offer her a
drink of milk upon his knees. And it is a real old rule for thousands of
years, a feudacious tenor, or something of that kind----”

“Where did you find all that, Susie? Is it true, mother? Do we hold
Yalton like that?” cried Fred in great delight. “I never knew we were
such distinguished people before.”

“I don’t see any distinction about it,” said Mrs. Dalyell: “I never paid
much attention to such old stories. Oh, if you believe all the Dalyell
stories---- By the way, Susie, I wish you to pronounce the name as I
do--as everybody is doing now. ’D’yell’ is so common--it is what the
ploughmen say.”

“It is the right old antiquous way,” said Susie with energy, “and I like
it far the best. I heard about the horseman too--what it means,” she
added in a low tone. “Papa will never let me speak, but I could tell you
such things, Fred, if----” And here the little girl made various
telegraphic signs, meaning that enlightenment might be afforded if they
were alone together, with the mother well out of the way. These designs,
however, were frustrated unconsciously by Mrs. Dalyell, who gave her
daughter something to do in the way of replying to notes, which kept
Susie busy until it was time for Fred to depart.

But yet there was a little time for talk when the girls went with him
round to the stables to remind the groom that he must not be late.

“Where did you hear about that feudal business, Susie?” said Fred. “Did
you get it out of a book?”

“I got it out of something much funnier. I got it out of old Janet. You
should just hear her; she knows more about us--oh! so much more--than we
know about ourselves. She told me about----”

“Old Janet!” said Fred. He had forgotten his father’s grave talk and all
that had passed on the terrace, and it was not till he had thought it
over for a minute or two that it slowly came back to him what
association that was which was linked with the name of old Janet. Not
that he had not perfect acquaintance with her, as a matter of fact. She
had been Mr. Dalyell’s nurse, and had always possessed a room of
her own at Yalton, where she lived in a curious isolation and
independence--respected, and, perhaps, a little feared by the household
in general. Fred endeavoured to remember what it was as Susie’s voice
ran on, and then it suddenly burst upon him. It was to her his father
had advised him to go if he wanted help, in the supposed contingency of
his own removal--old Janet, of all people in the world! The recollection
made Fred indignant, yet gave him a sort of shiver of alarmed
presentiment as well. Could his father have meant anything more than a
mere passing fancy? Yet surely he must have meant something. And under
what possible circumstances could he, Fred, a University-man, and
acquainted with the world, require to take counsel with old Janet? It
gave him the strangest thrill to his very finger-points. It must mean
something different from what it seemed to mean. His father would never
have given him such a recommendation without a reason. Fred thought with
a sensation of horror of the family secrets which such an old woman
might possess. She might know something that would ruin them all--there
might be something hanging over them, something which she had to break
to him. Fred flung this fancy out of his mind as if it had been a stone
that some one had thrown into it, and came back to what Susie was
saying. Indifferent to the fact that he was not listening, Susie was
recounting the story of the family warning.

“‘And since that time there has always been a sound in the avenue as if
some horseman was coming, heavy dunts on the road, and the tinkle of the
bridle,’ she says. Always when there is trouble coming. I am sure it
must be very fatiguing for a ghost, and monotonious--oh! just beyond
description--to ride that little bit of road and never come near the
house, and all just to frighten a person. I would dash into the hall and
shake my bridle at them if it was me.”

“If you were a ghost, Susie?” said Alice with a shiver. “Oh, how can you
think of yourself as a ghost?”

“I don’t: I’m not diaphanious,” said Susie; “but if you were to be a
ghost at all it would be better to have something more to do than just
dunting, dunting, over one bit of road.”

“Janet must have been telling you a lot of lies and nonsense,” said Fred
indignantly; “I’ll have to speak to her if she goes on like that.”

“Or tell papa,” said Alice. “He never likes to hear about the horseman.”

“Yes, or tell papa,” said Fred. He could not tell what it meant, but he
had a strange feeling as if it were he himself that must do this and
shield his sisters from things that might frighten them--as if his
father somehow had not much to do with it. But he was greatly shocked
with himself when he became conscious of this thought. He was so much
absorbed, indeed, in the uncomfortable fancies called up by Janet’s
name, that Susie’s story of the King’s hunting and danger of his life,
and how the goodwife of Yalton brought him a bowl of milk, and how the
lands, as much as they could ride round in a day, according to the most
approved romantic fashion, were bestowed upon the D’yells for that
service, had little effect upon her brother. And presently the dog-cart
came round to the door, and the sight of Fred seated in it with his
portmanteau diverted Susie’s thoughts also and brought back her
grievance. She stood watching his departure by the side of her mother,
who had come out as was her wont to see the boy off.

“There he goes!” said Susie. “Oh, what fossilized hearts boys have! He
never thinks of me that has to stay at home. Tell Lucy Scrymgeour if she
thinks I will ask her to our ball she is in the greatest mistake, and it
will be just as much splendider than theirs, as Yalton is better than
Westwood. And tell her mamma is going to take me to London to be
presented and make my three obeysances to the Queen, and when I have
done that I can go to every place, and all the other queens are obliged
to ask me. Well, if mamma doesn’t, it’s not my fault; but you can always
tell her, Fred: and just say to that ichthyosaurious Davie that I’ll
have all the grand guardsmen and equerries to talk to, and I wouldn’t
look at him.”

“But it’s not his fault, Susie,” said Alice; “and perhaps he’ll tell
Fred he is very sorry.”

“I don’t think he will, for boys have no hearts: they have vegetable
things instead, when they are not fossilized. If he says he is sorry,
Fred, you can say I don’t mind very much, only I’ll never speak to them
again.”

“I hope you’ll have a nice ball, Fred,” said Mrs. Dalyell. “Come back as
early as you can to-morrow, for there are some people coming to tea.
And you may bring over Lucy and David, and any other young ones that are
staying at Westwood. We can give them their tea on the terrace, it’s not
too cold for that; and I am sure Mrs. Scrymgeour will be thankful to any
one that will take them out of her way.”




CHAPTER III.


About the time when Fred was starting from Yalton Mr. Wedderburn, the
friend of the family, might have been seen in his office in a condition
very unlike his usual calm. That he was very much disturbed about
something was evident. His table was covered with all those
carefully-arranged letters and docketed papers which are essential to
the pose of a man of business; and by intervals he wrote a letter--or,
rather, part of a letter--to which he added a line whenever he could fix
his thoughts to it; but these intervals were scattered through the
reflections and calculations of several hours, to which Mr. Wedderburn
returned, from minute to minute, laying down his pen and falling back
into some more absorbing subject of thought. Sometimes he got up and
walked about the room, going from one window to the other, and staring
out at each as if the slight variation of the view could afford him some
light upon the subject over which he puckered his brows. Now and then he
said to himself audibly, “I must go out to-night.” He was not a man who
indulged in the habit of speaking to himself, nor was there much in
these words which could throw light upon the subject of his thoughts;
but it was evidently a sort of relief to him to say this as he paced
heavily about the room and looked out, staring blankly, neither seeing,
nor expecting to see, anything that would clear up the trouble on his
face. “I must go out to-night.” This phrase, however, meant a great deal
to the sober and reserved Edinburgh lawyer.

It meant that to the house which he visited so often, receiving
hospitality, kindness, and a sense of almost family well-being, for
which he gave back nothing but a steady, undemonstrative friendship, the
moment had now come when he must go in another character--in the
character, indeed, of an anxious brother and helper, but yet as
announcing an approaching catastrophe and the breaking-up of a
superstructure of long-established prosperity and peace. He had not been
convinced of the necessity of this till to-day. Whispers, indeed, had
come to his ears of doubtful speculations and a position which was
beginning to be assailed by questions which never should arise as to
the position of a man in business. But he had lent a deaf ear to all
that was malicious, and brushed away all friendly fears. “Bob D’yell’s
as sensible a fellow as ever stepped. It’ll take strong evidence to make
me believe that he’s been playing ducks and drakes with his money.” This
confident speech from a man of Pat Wedderburn’s authority (in Edinburgh,
as in fashionable circles, the well-known members of the community are
generally distinguished by their Christian names) had done much to
support a credit which was not so robust as it had been. But this
morning Mr. Wedderburn had heard very unpleasant things--things which
had gone to his heart, and wounded both his affection and his pride. He
had a pride in his friend’s credit as in his own. And when he thought of
the cheerful household and all its innocent indulgences, Mr. Wedderburn
struck the table with his fist in the trouble of his heart. To think
that they might have to leave Yalton, to give up their little luxuries,
their social rank, all the pleasures of their life, affected this old
bachelor as probably it would not at all affect themselves. He could
have shed angry tears over the “putting down” of Mrs. Dalyell’s carriage
and the girls’ ponies, which, if it came to that, and they were aware
that their position required such sacrifices, these ladies would give up
without a murmur; and, perhaps, none of them would have much objection
to come “in” to a house in Edinburgh instead of Yalton, which was a
possibility which made Mr. Wedderburn swear. He was very unhappy about
them, one and all, and about his life-long friend, Bob D’yell, who must
no doubt have been in the wrong, and whom sometimes in his heart he
blamed angrily and bitterly, thinking what the effect of his rashness
would be to the others. Pat Wedderburn was grieved to the heart. He
could as easily have believed in himself going wrong; “But, God bless
us!” he said to himself, “it’s not going wrong. He has been taken in; he
was always a sanguine fellow, and he’s been deceived.” His thoughts
finally resolved themselves into the necessity, above and before all
things, of having a long talk with Bob; and he repeated, as he once more
stared mechanically out of the further window, “I must go out to-night.”

He could not, however, go “out” before the usual time, and in the
interval he could not rest. Finally, he took his hat and left his office
with a better inspiration. If he could find his friend at one of the
establishments in which he had an interest, the talk might be had at
once, without any need, at least for to-night, of disturbing the
peaceful echoes of Yalton. Mr. Wedderburn went out for this purpose with
very tender thoughts of his friend mingled with his anger. “Why couldn’t
the fellow tell me in time? But the Lord grant it may still be in time!
There’s things I might have done. I’m not without funds nor resources,
nor ideas, either, for that matter.” And as Mr. Wedderburn went along
the orderly Edinburgh street, he burst out into a kind of laugh, such as
is among many elderly Scotchmen the last evidence of emotion, and said
within himself: “To the half of my kingdom!” The humour of the contrast
between that romantic phrase and the very prosaic, rapid calculation he
had gone through as to the money he--not a romantic person at all, an
Edinburgh W.S., of fifty-five, and of the most humdrum appearance--could
command: and the true feeling with which he had realised his friend’s
misfortune, burst forth in that anomalous sound. A woman who was passing
turned round and looked at him with puzzled alarm; and a boy, one of
those rude commentators who spare nobody’s feelings, called out,
“That’s a daft man; he’s laughing to himsel’.” “Laughing,” said Mr.
Wedderburn with something like a groan: “there is little laughing in my
head.” And so he went on to the Railway Office, and the Insurance
Office, to ask for Mr. Dalyell.

At the railway he had not been seen that day, at the other office he had
appeared for about half an hour only.

“He will have returned home, I suppose,” Wedderburn said indifferently.

“Well, no, sir; not at once,” said the clerk who answered his questions.
“I heard him saying he was feeling fagged, and that he was going out to
Portobello for a dip in the sea and a good swim.”

“It’s a little cold for that,” said Wedderburn.

“Well, it may be a little cold,” admitted the clerk cautiously, “but Mr.
D’yell is a great man for the sea.”

“He will probably be going out by the usual train,” Mr. Wedderburn said
to himself as he turned away. But there was no appearance of Dalyell in
the train. The lawyer walked to Yalton through the cornfields, in which
the harvest had begun, just as the sun was sinking. The ruddy autumnal
light came into his eyes, half blinding him with its long, level rays.
Everything was rosy with the brilliancy of the sunset; the blue sky
flushed with ruddy clouds, the warm colour of the sheaves catching a
still warmer tone from the sun. All was peaceful, wealthy, full of
external comfort and riches, and the house of Yalton caught the sinking
gleams from the west upon its high roof and pinnacles like a
benediction. The trees were taking the autumn livery here and there,
giving as yet only a little additional warmth to the landscape. To go
from Yalton to Melville Street, or some other dread abode of stony
gentility in Edinburgh, how could they ever bear it? Mr. Wedderburn had
been going over all his resources as he made his little journey, and he
had reckoned up what he could spare to set his friend on his legs again.
Perhaps there might yet be time!

When he went into the drawing-room where Mrs. Dalyell was sitting, she
raised her head from her work, with a smile on her face. And then he
observed a little alteration--oh, not so much as a cloud upon her face,
not even a look that could be called disappointment, but only the
slightest scarcely perceptible change of expression. “Mr. Wedderburn!”
she said. “I’m very glad to see you: but I thought it was Robert,” and
she held out her hand to him with all the easy confidence of habitual
friendship. She was not disappointed; there was no doubt in her mind
that Robert was coming, if not behind his friend, at least with the next
train.

“You will be surprised to see me so soon again,” he said, feeling a
little embarrassed. “You will think you are never to be quit of that old
fellow--but I wanted to have a long talk with Bob on some business; and
as I could not find him at the office----”

“No,” said Mrs. Dalyell; “he said as soon as he could get his business
over he was going down to Portobello for a dip in the sea. I never knew
such a man for the sea. No doubt that has made him lose his train--for
he’s generally very punctual by this train.”

“That is what I thought,” said Mr. Wedderburn. “I thought I would meet
him and come out with him. But the next will bring him, no doubt.”

“In about three-quarters of an hour,” said Mrs. Dalyell, calmly: and she
added, “It’s a beautiful evening, and it’s a pity to keep you in the
house. We should take the good of the fine weather as long as it lasts.
Never mind me: you will find the girls upon the terrace somewhere. But
take a cup of tea before you go out.”

“I will take a cup of tea,” said the visitor, “thankfully. But why not
come out upon the terrace yourself? It is the most lovely afternoon, and
the wind, as much as there is, is from the west. It’s a sin to stay in
the house when you have such a place to see the sunset from. Now if you
were in Melville Street, for instance----”

“Why Melville Street?” said Mrs. Dalyell with a laugh--but she did not
wait for an answer. “If I had to live in Edinburgh I would never go
there. I would prefer the south side--or old George’s Square where the
houses are so good. I sometimes think we will have to come in for the
winter now that Susie’s of an age for parties, for there is little
gaiety for a young thing here.”

“That’s true,” said Mr. Wedderburn, and he gave her a look in which
there was an inquiry and a moment’s doubt. Did she perhaps know
something? Had Bob D’yell confided some hint of approaching calamity or
necessary retrenchment to the wife of his bosom? What so natural, what
so wise? Mrs. Dalyell’s head was a little bent over the table where she
stood pouring out a cup of tea for the visitor; but she raised it,
meeting that inquiring look with the perfect frankness of her usual
demeanour and the calm of a woman round whom there had never been any
mysteries. She was struck, however, by his look. “Is there anything the
matter?” she said. “You are looking very serious.” Then, for heaven
knows what womanish reason, it occurred to her that Mr. Wedderburn was
himself in trouble, and wanting something of her husband. “You know,”
she said with a little emphasis, “that whatever might be the matter, if
there’s anything that Robert could do, Mr. Wedderburn, you are as sure
of him as of a brother.” “God bless her innocence!” the lawyer said to
himself.

“Not a bit,” he said. “There’s nothing the matter: but thank you all the
same for saying that. Bob D’yell’s been to me as a brother, since we
were boys together--and will be I hope till the end.”

Mrs. Dalyell put out her soft hand to him over the tea-table with a
smile. There was water in his eyes, though, fortunately, as he stood
with his back to the light, it could not be seen--but there was none in
hers. Her eyes were as serene as the evening skies; and her soft hand,
which perhaps was a little too soft, with no bones in it to speak of,
the hand of a woman never used to do much for herself, met his strong
grasp, in which there was more than many an oath of fidelity, with a
moderate and simple kindness which showed at once how natural and
genuine was the friendship to which she thus pledged her husband, and
how devoid of all tragical elements so far as her comprehension went.
She was a little surprised by Mr. Wedderburn’s grip, which rather hurt
that soft hand, but led the way to the terrace, after he had taken his
tea, with all her usual serenity. She took a shawl from the stand in the
hall and wrapped herself in it as she went out. In Scotland even in July
it is wise to take a shawl when you go out to see the sunset; how much
more in September! Indeed, after she had taken two or three turns upon
the terrace, she went in again, saying that it was all very well for
“you young things” (with a smile at Mr. Wedderburn), but that she knew
what rheumatism was. Susie and Alice were very good company on the
terrace, and they had a thousand things to say to their old friend, so
that, though he had looked occasionally at his watch, he had not taken
very decided note of the passage of time, until an hour after, when Mrs.
Dalyell came back again, with a shawl this time over her head. The sun
had quite gone down, the shadows were lengthening, and twilight stealing
on. “Do you mean to say,” Mrs. Dalyell said as she came down the steps
to the terrace, “that your father’s not here? I made sure he must be
here with you: the train’s been in this half-hour, and there’s not
another till nine--and no telegram. I don’t know what it can mean.”

It could not be said, perhaps, that she was anxious, but she was uneasy,
not knowing what to think. Mr. Wedderburn, for his part, started, as if
the fault had somehow been his. “Bless me!” he said, “I had forgotten
all about it. I might have gone down and met the train.”

“That would have done little good,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “for if he had
come by it he would have been here before now: the thing that astonishes
me is there’s no telegram. Sometimes Robert, like other people, is
detained. Every business man must be detained now and then: but he
always sends a telegram. I never knew him to fail.”

“That is the worst,” said Mr. Wedderburn, “of being too exact in your
ways. If you ever depart from them by any accident everybody thinks
something must have happened.”

“I don’t think something must have happened,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “but I
don’t understand it. It’s so unlike him. He would rather take any
trouble than keep me anxious; and I told him particularly we should be
alone to-night, with no man except servants in the house. It’s not like
Robert. It must have been something quite unforeseen.”

“Such things are always happening, my dear lady. He may have had to meet
some man from London; he may even have had to go to London himself.”

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Dalyell, “you don’t think that’s likely? Without so
much as a clean shirt! Besides, he would have sent a telegram,” she
repeated, going back to the one thing of which she was sure.

“It’s the telegram you miss more than the man,” said Mr. Wedderburn
with a laugh. It was very very little of a laugh. He was more miserable
than she, for her anxiety was quite unmixed by any deeper sense of a
possible reason for her husband’s absence. There was no reason for it,
none whatever to her consciousness.

“That is just it. I want the telegram to explain the man. Of course, he
might be called away. Would I have him tied to my apron-string? But a
word of warning, that’s what I look for. ‘Kept by business and will not
be back till the late train,’ or ‘Dining at the Lord President’s,’
or--it does not matter what it is. I am always glad that Robert should
enjoy himself, so long as I have my telegram. But as it’s evident he’s
not coming,” said Mrs. Dalyell, looking at her watch, “we must just take
our dinner and hope he’s getting as good a one. He will be coming by the
nine train.”

Mr. Wedderburn went in with very painful fancies, which he could not
shake off. The moment would have come, perhaps, when Bob D’yell had to
tell his family that he was a ruined man, and he would be shrinking from
that stern necessity. His friend pictured him wandering about the dark
streets, or sitting in the rooms above the Insurance Office, where
there was space to receive on occasion a belated director, and counting
up all he had--alas! would it not rather be all the debts he
had--reckoning them, and asking himself how long it would be before the
storm burst, and how he was to tell _her_, and what the poor children
would do? That was what the poor fellow would be thinking, wherever he
was. Instead of coming back--the good lawyer exclaimed within himself in
a little attempt at anger, to keep his sympathy from becoming too
heart-rending--to one that might have helped him! But that would be just
like Bob D’yell--ready enough to come to you if you were in trouble, to
give all his mind to what was to be done: but not if the trouble was his
own: more likely then to hide himself, to think shame of it, as if
misfortune was a man’s own fault. Mr. Wedderburn did not know what to
do, whether to hurry into Edinburgh to make inquiries, or to wait on,
and see whether he would arrive by the late train. Somehow he had very
little faith that his friend would come home. He might go away,
thinking, perhaps, that the creditors would be more gentle with his
family if he were gone. And that would be called absconding! Heaven
only could tell what in his despair the poor fellow might do.

Except suicide: there never occurred to his friend, in the endless
thoughts he had on the subject, any fear of that, which to a Frenchman
would be the first thing to be thought of--the natural refuge for a
bankrupt. No, no!--come what might there was no need to think of that
dark contingency. Besides, Mr. Wedderburn reflected, with a sense of the
grim humour of the suggestion, that Dalyell, as the director of an
insurance company, knew too well that such a step would take away the
last resource his children might have. No, no!--not that. But he might
go away. He might not be able to bear the sight of ruin as affecting
them. That was what chiefly weighed upon himself--the woman and her
children; the girls, who would not know what it meant; and poor Fred,
who would know what it meant--who would have to abandon everything on
which his heart was most set. Had Wedderburn been aware of the
conversation which had taken place between Fred and his father his
troubled thoughts would have been still more serious: as it was, all he
could do was to keep his countenance, to look as like his ordinary as
possible, not to frighten the poor things too soon.

But the dinner went over well enough. Mrs. Dalyell kept looking at the
door every time it opened, though she knew it was only to admit a new
dish, expecting her telegram. But it did not come. And the nine o’clock
train arrived, and there was still no appearance of the master of the
house. The footman was sent down to meet the train, and Wedderburn put
on his coat, and said shyly that he would just take a turn and meet the
truant. And the girls ran out by the terrace, and one strayed down the
avenue to bring papa home. And though it was cold, Mrs. Dalyell opened
one of the drawing-room windows that she might hear him coming. She was
not alarmed: but she was so much surprised that it made her a little
uneasy, for in all her married life such a thing had never happened to
her before.

When it proved that he had not come by the nine o’clock train nobody
knew what to think. By this time the telegraph-office was closed at the
village, and there was no longer any hope of news that way: which,
strangely enough, was a thing that rather calmed than otherwise Mrs.
Dalyell’s mind.

“He must be coming by the midnight express,” she said.

“Would you like me to go in and see if there was anything the matter?”
said Mr. Wedderburn.

“What could be the matter?” she said.

“Oh, he might be ill--or there might have been an accident!”

“In that case,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “Robert never would have omitted to
send a telegram--or the people at the office, or wherever he was, would
have done it. No, no! You would go in to Edinburgh anxious, and we could
not let you know that he had got the express to stop. Just stay where
you are. And we’ll hear all about it when he comes. And it’s a comfort
to have you in the house.”

To this request Mr. Wedderburn at once yielded. If the poor fellow did
come home, miserable and disheartened, it was better that he should see
a friend’s face, and take counsel with a man who was ready to help and
advise before he told _her_. Besides, it was better for her, poor thing,
to have somebody to stand by her. And, oddly enough, now that there was
no chance of that telegram she was not so anxious. She had no doubt of
Robert coming by the express. She let Alice stay up beyond her bedtime
to make up a rubber for Mr. Wedderburn, and took her share in the game
quite cheerfully. She did not believe in either illness or accident. “He
would have had no peace till I was by his bedside,” she said; “and
anybody could have sent a telegram.” No, no, she had no fear of that:
and expected now quite calmly the last train.

But Mr. Dalyell did not come by the midnight express.




CHAPTER IV.


There is something dreadful in the aspect of a room from which its
habitual occupant is absent unexpectedly all night. Its good order, its
cold whiteness, the unused articles in tidy array, undisturbed by any
careless natural movements, strike a chill to the heart. In any case,
even when the usual tenant is pleasantly absent, or gone on a visit,
there is something ominous in the empty room. It seems to breathe of a
time when the familiar person will be gone for ever. And how much more
when the beloved occupant has gone mysteriously--absent, lost in the
unknown--no one knowing where he has passed the night! Mrs. Dalyell was
not a fanciful woman, she was not given to morbid imaginations, but when
she glanced into her husband’s dressing-room next morning her heart sank
for a moment with this chill, that would not be reasoned away. She did
reason it away, however, and recovered her composure. For, after all,
what was it?--nothing. A man in active life has a hundred calls upon
him. He might be whipped off to London upon some railway business
without any warning. The only thing that really troubled her was the
absence of that telegram. It was still almost summer weather; nothing to
interrupt the working of the telegraph anywhere. Already even she might
have had one had he telegraphed from any station on the way up to
London. This was the thing which she could not understand.

“No, there is no word,” she said. “I have made up my mind he must have
been called off at a moment’s notice to London; but why he didn’t
telegraph, I can’t imagine--even from Berwick he might have done it, and
I should have had it by this time. I never knew Robert so careless
before.”

“Here it is, mother,” cried Alice, rushing in with the famous yellow
envelope, the hideous messenger of so much trouble. But when Mrs.
Dalyell took it, she flung it back again almost with indignation, and
turned upon the girl with a sort of fury.

“Couldn’t you see,” she cried, “that it was for Mr. Wedderburn?” The
poor lady had kept her nerves quiet and her imagination suppressed till
now. But this felt to her like an injury. She got up from the
breakfast-table, and paced about the room, wringing her hands. It had
come, but it was not for her! This seemed to put terror into the
anxiety, an increase of every involuntary tremor. In the sickness of the
disappointment tears came rushing to her eyes. She took Alice by the
shoulders and gave her a shake. “Couldn’t you see? you little careless
monkey!” Poor Mrs. Dalyell was unjust in the heat of her disappointment.
But after a while reason once more resumed its sway. “I am letting it
get upon my nerves,” she said with a tremulous laugh, as she came back
to the table. Then, with a glance at Mr. Wedderburn’s disturbed face,
“It is not by any chance--about Robert?” she cried.

“No--no--I’ve no reason to suppose it is. It’s from my managing clerk.
He says: ‘Something requiring your instant attention. Fear bad----’
No--no--no reason in the world to suppose that D’yell has anything to do
with it. I must just hurry away. I’m called upon often, you know,” he
added with a sickly explanatory smile, “on urgent--personal affairs.”

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “we know that well; and no better or kinder
counsellor. But you have had no breakfast----”

“I must not stop a moment longer--there is just time for the early
train.”

The girls caught their hats from the stand in the hall and ran down with
him, Alice speeding on in front like a greyhound to bid the
station-master keep back the train for a minute--a kindly arrangement
which often was made for the convenience of Yalton. Mr. Wedderburn gave
forth a few breathless instructions to Susie as he hurried along. “If I
were you I would send over for Fred. He should be at home in the
circumstances: and don’t let your mother be troubled.”

“But, dear Mr. Wedderburn, what are the circumstances?” said Susie. “Is
there anything wrong with papa?”

“I hope not, my dear, I hope not. I’ve no reason to think that there is
anything wrong: but just--I would have Fred at home as early as
possible. And if I hear anything in town, I’ll send you word directly.
And you may calculate on seeing me before dinner. Then we’ll know what
to think.”

“I hope papa will be home before then: and he’ll laugh at us
cardiatically.”

“Susie, my dear--there’s no such word.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Wedderburn, for cardiac means from the heart; and that’s
the only way it will go.”

He turned round upon her, and smiled with the strangest mixture of
fatherly kindness and pity and sorrow. Susie was silenced by this
strange look. Her eyes were startled with a sudden anxious question, her
soft lips dropped apart with fear and wonder. “Oh, why are you so sorry
for me, Mr. Wedderburn?” she cried. But they were just arriving at the
railway, and the train was waiting. Susie, with her young sister
clinging to her arm, both a little breathless with their run, in their
light morning dresses and careless garden hats, the rose of morning
health and brightness in their soft, shaded faces, the morning sun
shining upon them and round them, distinguishing them upon the rustic
platform by the soft little shadow they threw, was a sight the good
lawyer never forgot. “The innocent things!” he said to himself.

When he was safe from their eyes, whirling along over the country, he
took once more the telegram from his pocket: “Something requiring your
immediate attention. Fear bad news. Sent for last night. Too late to
communicate, please lose no time.” Well! after all, there was nothing in
that to indicate Bob D’yell. It might be Mrs. Davidson’s business. It
might be that scapegrace young Faulkner again. The devil fly away with
all young spendthrifts! To give an honest man a fright like this for
him! Mr. Wedderburn, with a momentary relief, noted, a gleam of fun
coming into his eyes, two superfluous words in the telegram:
“‘Please’--the blockhead! What man in his senses says ‘please’ when he
has to pay a ha’penny for it?” he said with a little hoarse laugh to
himself. For surely it must be young Faulkner--the born fool! There was
absolutely nothing to connect it with Bob D’yell.

When he entered his office, however, he was met with a very grave face
by his managing clerk. “It was a man from Musselburgh, sir, last night.
He came to the office, and finding it shut, as it naturally would be at
that hour, came on to me at my house. You know, sir, I live out at
Morningside----”

“It would be strange if I did not know where you live--get on, man, get
on!”

“I say that to account for it being so late. Well, sir, he told me--if
it was Musselburgh or if it was Portobello, I can’t quite say, but it’s
written down, and I sent off young Gibson by skreigh of day to make
inquiries. He told me, sir, that a heap of clothes had been found on the
sands belonging to somebody, it would seem, that was bathing in the sea.
They lay there all the afternoon and no one took any notice, but at last
one of the fisherwomen getting bait came in and said it was a
gentleman’s clothes, and his watch and all lying. And the things were
examined, and in the pockets were a number of letters----”

Mr. Wedderburn gave a gasp, inarticulate but impatient, with a vehement
wave of his hand. The clerk handed him, with a look of deep
commiseration and sympathy which filled the lawyer with sudden rage, a
little packet on the table.

Ah!--had he not known it all the time?

He sank into a chair, speechless for the moment, but half with rage at
Martin standing there gently shaking his head, with the look that a
sympathetic acquaintance wears at a funeral--as if it were anything to
him! “Robert Dalyell, Esq., Yalton,” the familiar commonplace address,
that meant nothing except the merest everyday necessity--that meant a
whole tragedy now.

“Found lying on the sands. But was that all--was that all? For God’s
sake, man, speak out, whatever you have to say.”

Martin excused Mr. Wedderburn’s hastiness with a slight wave of his
hand, and said all there was to say. It was very little: Mr. Dalyell, a
man very well known, had been seen to arrive at the station, and had
been met by various people on his way to the sea. He was not in the
habit of using the bathing machines, as indeed few gentlemen were. There
was no special danger about the spot, and it was a calm day, and he was
a good swimmer. Of course the place was a little out of the way, and
east of the sands, as was indispensable when gentlemen bathed without
any machine; but nothing out of the ordinary--many men did the same, and
Mr. Dalyell did it constantly. No cry of distress had been heard, nor
any other signs of a catastrophe. This little mound of clothes, flung
down with the conviction of perfect security, the watch in the pocket,
a shilling or two dropped on the sands as the things were moved--this
was all. “The body,” Martin said, dropping his already subdued voice,
“had not been found.”

The body! Surely it was premature still to talk of that.

“He might have been carried along by the current further east and got to
land there.”

“A naked man, sir--without any clothes! There would soon have been word
of such a wonder as that--and somebody sent on for the things. We took
all that into consideration.”

“I must go down myself at once,” said the lawyer.

“I sent Gibson, sir, the first thing.”

“What’s Gibson to me?” said Mr. Wedderburn, with a sort of roar of
trouble, anger, and misery combined. “I must go myself.”

“There are a number of letters,” said Martin, “that might want
answering.”

“Letters! when Bob Dalyell’s lying somewhere dead or dying.”

“Oh, sir,” said Martin, “in the midst of life we are in death. If it’s
poor Mr. D’yell--and there’s no reasonable doubt on the subject--he’s
dead long, long before now.”

Wedderburn made a dash through the air with his clenched fist, as if he
had been knocking down a too sympathetic clerk, and took his hat, and
darted away.

“Old Pat’s in one of his grandest tempers,” a young clerk permitted
himself to say in Mr. Martin’s hearing, as the door closed with a
violent swing behind their employer.

“Old Pat!--if it’s our respected superior, Mr. Wedderburn, that ye mean
by that familiar no to say contemptuous epithet,” said Mr. Martin--“he
has just heard of the loss of his dearest friend. You would do better to
feel for him than to mock at a good man in trouble, my young friend.”

Mr. Wedderburn rushed to Portobello as fast as the train would take him,
following in the track of his young clerk, who had already exhausted
every means of information, but who fortunately met the lawyer on the
way and gave him the result of his inquiries. These inquiries seemed to
leave no doubt as to the catastrophe, and Wedderburn found to his horror
that it was already very generally known, and that there had been a
paragraph on the subject in the _Scotsman_, fortunately not giving the
name of the sufferer, but indicating the general fear that a well-known
member of society had been the victim. “They never read the papers,” Mr.
Wedderburn said to himself, “and she would never think it was--_him_”
(already it seemed too familiar to say Bob). When some one came hurrying
up to him, grasping his hand and asking, “Is this awful news true?--is
it out of doubt that it’s poor D’yell?”--the broken-hearted man felt
once more fiercely angry at the question, as if it was not a thing to be
discussed in ordinary words. But this was morbid, he knew. The
questioner was Mr. Scrymgeour, Fred’s host, the giver of the ball on the
previous night, who explained that he had seen the paragraph in the
papers, and had secured it at once and come in to Edinburgh to inquire,
that the poor boy should hear nothing till he could ascertain if it were
true. And even while he spoke, others came pressing upon them with grave
faces: “Was it true? Could it be D’yell?” The sensation was
extraordinary. “He was said to be a little shaky in business matters,”
said one. “That was all rubbish,” said another. “A man with a good
estate at his back and plenty of friends--no fear but he would have
pulled through.” “And Chili stock is looking up again, which was
supposed to be his danger.” Thus they stood and talked him over. “I
suppose there is no doubt it was an accident?” said another cautiously.
This remark caught the lawyer’s anxious ear, upon whose own heart a
heavy cloud of dread was hanging. But there was a chorus (thank God!) of
assurances. No, no!--Bob D’yell was the best fellow in the world. He was
a man always confident in his own mind, a man that had every inducement
to live--with a fine family, his son at Oxford, with a good estate
behind him, and an excellent character and plenty of friends. Even if
there might be a little temporary embarrassment--that would soon have
blown over. There were men that would have stuck by him through thick
and thin. “Me, for instance,” said Mr. Wedderburn, careless of grammar.
“I went out especially last night to tell him, if there really was
trouble, I would see him through it----” “Poor fellow! Poor Bob! Poor
D’yell!” the bystanders said in their various tones. Nobody had the
faintest hope that he could have escaped. Such a prodigy as a man
without clothes would soon have been known along the coast. And of
course he would have hurried back, if he had been saved, to ease the
anxieties of his friends. It was only Mr. Wedderburn who insisted upon
every means being taken to secure the poor remains, and that not for
certainty of the fact, but for decent burial. There is no coroner’s
inquest in Scotland; but an inquiry into all the circumstances was
immediately set on foot, an inquiry at first in which there was no
certain evidence but the piteous heap of clothes, the respectable
garments in which every man of business goes to town. The papers left in
the pocket, the few shillings on the sands, the notes in his
pocket-book, were all so many unconscious witnesses to the accident, all
proving how accidental, how unlooked-for, was this cutting short of his
career. There was even a withered rose in his coat, a pale China rose
from one corner of the terrace at Yalton, which Mr. Wedderburn
recognised with a pang, as if it had been one of the children. The tears
blinded the middle-aged lawyer’s eyes as he took this faded thing out of
his friend’s coat, brushed off the sand from the withered leaves, and
put it in his pocket-book reverently. All who were present looked on at
this little incident as if it had been a religious rite.

It may be added here that the naked remains of a drowned man were found
a few weeks afterwards on the east sands of Portobello. Needless to say
that they were quite unrecognisable; but the height and size, and the
absence of clothing, made it as nearly certain as any such thing could
be that this was all that remained of Robert Dalyell.

Meanwhile that fatal day passed over at Yalton, the first part very
quietly, as usual, in the ordinary occupations of the household. It was
a beautiful morning, full of comfort and good hope, and Mrs. Dalyell was
busy in her house. It was the day for the overseeing and paying of the
weekly bills, and there were various repairs necessary before the winter
set in which she had to look after, and a great deal of linen--napery as
she called it--had come in from the laundry, which it was essential to
examine to see what wanted renewing and what it would be possible to
darn and keep in use. Old Janet Macalister was famous for her darning.
Old as she was, it was still, Mrs. Dalyell said, “a pleasure to see” her
work. It was an ornament to the tablecloths rather than a blemish. Old
Janet was in great activity, almost agitation. She appeared in the
house, as she very rarely did, and talked so much in an excited way,
that the servants thought her “fey.” She went with Mrs. Dalyell to the
housekeeper’s room, uninvited, to examine the linen. “Dinna put that
away. I can darn that fine,” old Janet said to many articles over which
her mistress shook her head. “Losh! what’s the good o’ me, eatin’ bread
and burnin’ fire this mony mony a year, if I canna keep the napery in
order!” she cried. Her head, which was slightly palsied, nodded more
than usual, her large pale hands shook; but her voice was strong, and
she ended every sentence with a harsh laugh.

“I am afraid you are not very well to-day, Janet,” said Mrs. Dalyell.

“Oh, ’deed am I, very well; but ye must give me work, mistress, ye must
give me work. Without work there are o’er many thoughts in a person’s
head for comfort. And that fine darning, it just takes everything out of
ye: it takes up baith body and mind.”

When her survey of the linen was over, Mrs. Dalyell came back to the
drawing-room, having sent old Janet back to her room with an armful of
sheets and tablecloths. And she was glad to escape from the old woman.
There was a gleam in her eyes, often fixed upon her mistress with a
penetrating look, as if she knew something, and her unusual flurry of
speech and the harsh laugh of agitation which occurred so often, which
Mrs. Dalyell did not understand, and which alarmed her--she could not
tell why. Then came luncheon, to which she sat down with her girls, with
a forlorn sense of the two empty seats which Foggo had placed as usual.
“I thought, mem,” he said in his solemn way, “that Mr. Fred would have
been home, if not the maister.”

“Why should you think Mr. Fred would have been at home?” she asked
almost angrily.

“He is coming in the afternoon with some of the young people from
Westwood for tea. We shall want tea on the terrace at half-past four,
and there will probably be five or six people.”

“Very well, mem,” said Foggo, more solemn than ever, and with a look
which, like Janet’s, meant more than his words.

Mrs. Dalyell had something like an _attaque des nerfs_, which was a
malady unknown to her. She could not eat anything. In order that the
servants might not suppose there was anything irregular in their
master’s proceedings, she said nothing before Foggo about her anxiety.
She said she was tired, looking over all that weary linen. “And old
Janet, that was stranger than ever, and she always was a strange
creature. I think I will lie down for a little after lunch. And I almost
wish that I had not bidden Fred to bring over the Scrymgeours with him
for the afternoon.” If this was said to throw dust in Foggo’s eyes, Mrs.
Dalyell might have spared herself the trouble. For Foggo had read his
_Scotsman_ that morning, and had heard a murmur of dismay which had come
to Yalton by the backstairs, by the kitchen--nobody knew how. “God help
the poor woman!” Foggo said, when he retired to his own domain, with
more feeling than respect. “She’s full of trouble, but she will not let
on, and though she’s in horror of something, it’s not half so bad as
what has come to pass.”

“If that story’s true,” said the cook, who was too much disturbed and
too anxious to hear everything to take any trouble about her own work,
which the kitchen-maid was accomplishing sadly while her principal
talked and cried over the dreadful rumour which had swept hither on the
wings of the wind. “Oh, it’s true enough,” said Foggo, whose disposition
was dismal--“and there’s little dinner will be wanted here this night,
for sooner or later they must hear. It was more than I could well bear
to hear them talking of the big tea on the terrace and who was coming. I
hope the Scrymgeour people will not be so mad as to let their young ones
come: and nobody else will come, for it’s well known over the country by
this time, though she doesn’t know.”

“Oh, my poor bonnie lady,” said the cook weeping--“and the kind maister,
that had a pleasant word for everybody.”

“Not so pleasant a word for them that crossed him,” said Foggo. “Not
that I would say a word against him, and him a drowned man.”

Early in the afternoon Fred came home. It was a house that stood always
with open doors and windows, so that there was no need to open to any
familiar comer; but Foggo was in the hall, chiefly because he too was
excited and eager to have the first of any news that might arrive, when
the youth with his light step came in. His eager question, “Is my
father at home?” made the grave butler more solemn than ever.

“No, sir, the master has not been back since he left the house yesterday
morning,” said Foggo.

But though his looks were so significant, that the very dogs saw that
something was the matter, Fred neither gave nor communicated any news.
He rushed upstairs three steps at a time, and burst into the
drawing-room, where his mother was sitting. She had tried to lie down,
as she had said, but Mrs. Dalyell could not rest: her nerves would not
be stilled, and her thoughts grew so many that they buzzed in her ears,
and seemed to suffocate her in her throat. She was sitting at the window
which commanded the gate, so that she might see who appeared, ever
watching for that telegraph boy, who in a moment might set all right.

“You have come back early, Fred,” she said. “And have you come alone?”

“Mother, what’s this I hear, that my father has never come home?”

“Who has told you such a thing? Your father has many affairs in his
hands; he’s often been called away in a hurry.”

“You knew then he was going somewhere? It’s all right, then, thank
God!” said Fred; “and that dreadful thing in the papers has nothing to
do with him.”

“What dreadful thing in the papers?” cried Mrs. Dalyell. It was not till
Fred had thus committed himself in his haste and anxiety that he felt
how foolish it was to refer to a report which as yet was not
authenticated. He went to look for the papers, cursing his own rashness.
But Foggo had more sense than might have been supposed. He had conveyed
that _Scotsman_ out of the way.

Alas! as if it were of any use to try to stave off the knowledge of such
a calamity! An hour later Mr. Wedderburn’s sober step sounded upon the
gravel, coming up from the train. Mrs. Dalyell sat still in her chair,
not running to meet him as the others did. “Oh, I shall hear it soon
enough--I shall hear it soon enough!” she said to herself.

His very step had tragedy in it; and she knew before she saw him that
something dreadful had happened, that the failure of that telegram,
which Robert had never before omitted to send her, was but too well
explained. Something like a sweeping gust of fatal wind seemed to flow
through the house--a chill consciousness of coming trouble, calling out
everybody from above and below to hear the news. And then there was a
terrible cry, and then a dread stillness fell over Yalton--like the
stillness before a storm.

There was one strange thing, however, which happened that fatal
afternoon, and which Fred could never forget. As he went upstairs to his
own room, which was in the upper storey, a pale and miserable ghost of
the cheerful youth he had been yesterday, he saw old Janet standing at
the end of the passage which led to her room. She put out her long arm,
out of the folds of her tartan shawl. “How is she taking it, Mr. Fred?”
she asked. Janet’s eyes were deep, and shone with a strange fire. Her
face was full of excitement and agitation--but not of grief, although
she had been devoted to the master, who was also her nursling. “How is
your mother taking it?” There was a gleam of strange curiosity in her
eyes.

“Taking it?” cried Fred. “Have you no heart that you ask such a
question? My mother is heartbroken--as we all are,” said the lad, his
voice giving way to the half-arrested sob, which he was too young to be
able to restrain.

“But no me--that’s what you’re thinking: though the Lord knows he’s
more to me than everything else in this world. Laddie, you’re
young--young; and so is your mother. But me, I’m a very old woman. I’ve
seen many a strange thing. You’ll mind that you’re to come and ask me if
you’re ever very sore troubled in your mind.”

“You!” cried Fred. There was something like scorn in his tone. The first
distress of youth seems always final, insurmountable, so that it is half
an insult to suggest that it will be lived through and other troubles
come. But then a sudden chill of horror came over the lad. “You!” he
said again, with a pang which he did not himself understand. He
remembered what his father had said: “Go to old Janet.” Did she know
what his father had said? Had she been aware that this great trouble,
this more than trouble, this misery, calamity, was coming? Fred gave the
old woman an awed and terrified look--and fled: from her and his own
thoughts.




CHAPTER V.


There is no coroner’s inquest in Scotland, as has been said;
nevertheless there was a careful examination into all the circumstances
of Mr. Dalyell’s death. It was known that he was going to Portobello to
bathe. This he had stated not only to his family, but to the clerks at
the insurance office and other persons whom he had met. One gentleman
appeared who had travelled that little journey with him by the train,
whom he had almost persuaded to join him in his swim, and who parted
with him only at the corner of the road leading down to the sands; the
porter at the station had seen him arrive, had seen the two walk off
together. There was no mystery or concealment about anything he had
done. It was his usual place for bathing, there was nothing
extraordinary about the matter, up to the moment when the clothes were
found on the sands and the man was gone. Every step was traced of his
ordinary career, nor could one suspicious circumstance be found. The
mere fact of the heap of clothing, the money in the pockets, the watch,
all the familiar careless evidences of a day which was to be as any
other day, with no auguries of evil in it, was all there was to account
for his disappearance. But that was pathetically distinct and
unimpeachable. And when after so much delay the body was found--which,
indeed, no one could tell to be Robert Dalyell’s body, but which by
every law of probability might be considered so--the question dropped,
and all the endless talk and speculation to which it had given rise. Of
course there were doubts at first whether it might be suicide. But why,
of all people in the world, should Robert Dalyell drown himself? No
doubt there had been rumours of unfortunate speculations, and possible
pecuniary disaster. But everybody knew now that Pat Wedderburn, a man of
considerable wealth and unlimited credit, had put his means at his
friend’s disposal. It is true that what Mr. Wedderburn had said was that
he was about to do so; but these fine shades are too much to be
preserved when a statement is sent about from mouth to mouth, and all
Edinburgh was persuaded that Mr. Wedderburn’s means made Dalyell’s
position secure--if, indeed, it ever was insecure, with a good estate
behind him, and all his connections. But what a fatality! What a
catastrophe! A man in the prime of life, with a nice wife and delightful
children, a charming place, an excellent position, everything smiling
upon him. That he should be carried away from all that in a moment by
some confounded cramp, some momentary weakness. What a lesson it was! In
the midst of life we are in death. This was what, with many regrets for
Bob D’yell and sorrow for his family, and a great sensation among all
who knew him, Edinburgh said. And then the event was displaced by
another event, and his name was transferred from the papers and
everybody’s mouth to a tablet in Yalton Church, and Robert Dalyell was
as if he had never been.

It proved that his life was very heavily insured--to a much larger sum
than anybody had been aware of, and in several offices. Neither Mrs.
Dalyell, nor any of his advisers knew the reason for these unusual
liberalities of arrangement, if not that Mr. Dalyell, being himself
concerned in an insurance office, thought it right to set an example to
others by the number and value of his own. Enough was obtained in this
sorrowful way to clear off everything that was wrong in his affairs, and
to secure Fred, when he should come of age, in unencumbered possession
of Yalton, as well as to leave the portions of the girls intact. So far
as this went, and though it was a dreadful thing to think, much more to
say, no doubt it passed through Mr. Wedderburn’s mind, who was the sole
executor, with the exception of Mrs. Dalyell, that the moment of poor
Bob’s death was singularly well chosen. Mrs. Dalyell left everything in
his hands, so that the conclusion was in no way forced upon her, nor
would she have entertained it if it had occurred to her. Nothing would
have persuaded her that her Robert had drowned himself, and she knew no
reason why. She was not a woman who demanded explanations, who searched
into the motives of things. She accepted the event when it happened with
sorrow or with thankfulness, according as it was good or bad, but she
did not demand to have the secret told her of how it came about. And she
grieved deeply for her good husband; the earth was altogether overcast
to her for a time. She felt no warmth in the sun, no beauty in the
world--a pall hung over everything. Robert was gone--what was the good
of all those secondary things, the comforts and ease of life, which were
not him, nor ever could bring him back? She would have accepted joyfully
a life of poverty and privation with Robert instead of this dreadful
comfortable blank without him. Her emotions were as sincere as they were
sober and unexaggerated. But, as was natural, this gloom of early
bereavement did not last. After a few months she was capable of taking a
little pleasure in the spring weather, of watching the flowers come up.
And though the first notice she took of these ameliorating circumstances
was to say with tears, “How pleased your father always was to see the
crocuses!” yet it was the beginning of a better time. Mrs. Dalyell was
still in the forties; she was in excellent health, and she was of a
mild, unimpassioned temperament. It was not possible that the clouds
should hang for ever about such a tranquil sky.

But there were two of the mourners who were not so simply constituted.
Fred, who had been so light-hearted a boy when his father talked to him
on the terrace and bade him think of the catastrophes which overturned
so many young lives, was greatly changed. He could not get that
conversation out of his mind, nor the strange recommendation his father
had given him, nor the stranger repetition by old Janet of what Mr.
Dalyell had said. How did she know? Had the father confided to her what
was about to happen? Confided?--a thing which was an accident, an
unforeseen calamity, or---- what else? Confided to Janet that next day
he was going to die? Fred turned this over in his mind, over and over,
till he was nearly mad. How did she know? How did she know? Was it
second-sight, witchcraft of one kind or another? But Fred was a young
man of his time--or rather he was not sufficiently a young man of his
time to believe in witchcraft or any occult power. How was it?--how was
it?--how was it? This question went on in his mind so constantly that it
became a sort of mechanical rhyme running through everything. How did
old Janet know? Had it been discovered by her somehow by mystic art? Had
it been confided to her? He could not turn his mind away from this
question or forget it. How did she know?--what did she know? Fred felt
as if he should have informed the commissioners who had investigated the
circumstances of his father’s death of that conversation on the
terrace. It might be only a coincidence; but it was a very curious
coincidence. He ought to have reported it, made it known, that everybody
might draw his own conclusions. Here was a man who as a matter of fact
died by some mysterious accident next day, and who had talked to his son
of what he might have to do were he left with the family on his hands,
and advised whom he should take counsel with in difficulties: and the
proposed counsellor had apparently been communicated with too. What
would the little court of inquiry, he wondered, have said to that? What
would the insurance people have said? Was it his duty to have told the
strange and terrible detail? Was it better to have remained silent? Poor
Fred could not tell what he ought to have done--what he ought to do. He
was but a boy after all, when all was said. He had not been accustomed
to form such momentous decisions for himself, and he was overwhelmed
with grief and misery, not able to think. He remained silent, not
betraying even to Mr. Wedderburn, who was now the guide of the
household, looking after everything, what he felt. But the lad was very
unhappy. There was no reason why he should not return to Oxford; but he
had no desire to return. He did not care to do anything. He wandered
about the grounds asking himself what his father meant, if he had it all
in his mind then as he walked along the terrace in the dark, listening
to his boy’s chatter of college jokes and light-hearted nonsense. Was he
thinking then of what was to be done next day? Had he planned it all?
and left perhaps his last instructions with Janet, the unlikeliest
repository of such secrets. Could it be this? or only coincidence, a
series of coincidences, such as may occur and sometimes do occur,
perplexing and confusing every calculation? All this made him very
miserable, as he pondered, many a weary monotonous night and day. He
stole out in the evenings after dinner and strolled along the terrace,
as his father had been used to do, with a sort of vague hope of
enlightenment, of some influence that might come to him, or even voice
that he might hear. But he never heard anything more than the wind
moaning in the trees, which drove him indoors with the melancholy of
their unseen rustling, and the eerie sounds of the night, rising over
all the invisible country, tinkle of water, and sweeping sound of the
winds and the drop of the autumnal leaves falling, the hoot of an owl,
the stirring of unseen things in the woods and fields. But when he was
indoors again, still less could Fred bear the cheerful air of the
drawing-room with its bright fire and lamps, and the voices of his
sisters which began after a time of silence to whisper and chatter again
in the irrepressible vitality of their youth. Had it all been planned
before that night? Did his father already well know what was going to
happen on the morrow--all the incidents of the tragedy? And did Janet
know? Fred repeated these questions to himself till his brain felt as if
it were giving way.

All this time he kept himself carefully away from speech or look of
Janet, who had been, strange as it was, less affected by the calamity
than any one in the house, and had a look in her dry eyes which Fred
could not understand. His heart revolted against her; a woman without
feeling, who had no tears for the man who had surrounded her with
comforts and ensured her well-being for her life--the man who was her
child, whom she had nursed, but never mourned. A sort of hatred sprang
up in the lad’s mind towards this old woman. He felt it a wrong and
almost insult that he should have been bidden to take her advice--and
avoided her as if she had been the plague. Janet, on the contrary,
seemed to seek opportunities of encountering him, appearing suddenly
about the house, as she had never hitherto done, in all kinds of
unlikely places. Her unobtrusiveness had been one of her great qualities
in former times. She had never been seen on the stairs or in the
corridor, scarcely at all, except at the opening of the passage leading
to her own room, or sitting in the sun by the laundry door, or about the
servants’ part of the house. But now old Janet seemed to be everywhere.
Fred met her in the hall, lingering about the library, in the gallery
above which encircled the hall, everywhere save in his mother’s
drawing-room. And whenever she met him, though she did nothing to stop
him, she gave him a look full of significance. It seemed to say, “When
are you coming to consult me? I want to be consulted,” till the young
man became exasperated, and fled from her with an ever-growing sense of
trouble or fear. Her apparition in her large white mutch, with a black
ribbon round it, tied in a great bow on the top of her head, with her
black and white shepherd’s plaid shawl, which she had adopted, instead
of the old red and green tartan, in compliment to the family
mourning--gave him a sensation of shivering, as if old Janet had
included in her own person the properties of all the Fates. He was
afraid of what she might have to say to him--afraid lest there should be
something to tell which would be hateful to hear; afraid for his
father’s good name and his own peace.

Mr. Wedderburn had no such addition to the many cares which this
catastrophe had introduced into his placid life. He knew nothing about
Janet, or any secret she might have in her keeping, nor had he any idea
of that last interview which lay so heavily upon Fred’s mind; but he was
not at ease. The public mind had been entirely reassured on the subject
of Dalyell’s embarrassed circumstances by the announcement that Pat
Wedderburn had taken upon him all the responsibility and was indeed the
principal in Dalyell’s speculations, using him only as an agent, which
was what Wedderburn’s statement on the subject had now grown to. But
Wedderburn knew very well that he had only intended to make this offer
to his friend, and that Dalyell’s troubles about money were weighing
very heavily upon him when he went down to Portobello for his swim. And
he knew that the very opportune cramp or failure of heart which caused
his death accomplished at the same time the complete deliverance from
all those cares, of his children and his wife. Everything was
appropriate, perfectly convenient to the moment and to the needs of the
man who gave his life for his family as much as if he had defended them
to the death on the ramparts of some besieged city--with this only
exception, that the weapons with which he fought were equivocal, if not
dishonest. For the insurance money would never have been paid to the
representatives of a suicide. Poor Bob! poor Bob! it was unworthy, it
was dreadful to associate that title with his honest name. And yet--if
it had been a planned thing, it was not an honest thing, although he had
paid for it by the sacrifice of his life. This thought rankled in Mr.
Wedderburn’s mind. Dalyell had been, so to speak, absolved by public
opinion from that guilt. The payment of the insurances was in itself a
full acquittal, and no one ventured to say or even think that the
catastrophe on the Portobello sands was anything but a fatal accident.
But Wedderburn’s mind was haunted by this doubt. It was not for him to
bring it forward, to hint a suspicion which could never be proved, which
would be ruinous to the prospects of those whose interests were in his
hands. No, never to any soul would he hint such a doubt. But yet--he
said to himself that poor Bob would have been capable of it. A thing
that you are willing to give your life to purchase--it is difficult to
believe that what is bought at such a sacrifice could be wronging any
one, or a sin against the commonwealth. The suicide would be a sin
before God, but many a desperate creature is ready to encounter that,
with a pathetic trust in the understanding and pity of the great Father.
But to die dishonestly for the good of your family, that was a different
thing. Bob Dalyell, perhaps, was not a man who would attach any idea of
guilt to this way of cheating the insurance companies, even his own
office; but Wedderburn, who might have been capable of the sacrifice,
would have stood at that. His idea of honour and probity was perhaps
more abstract than that of a man who was involved in sharp business
transactions, in speculation and commercial adventure, and who was,
besides, a man with a family, bent upon saving them from ruin. He shook
his head and acknowledged to himself that poor Bob was capable of not
having taken that divergence from strict integrity into account. Had he
made up his mind to die for his family he would not have considered the
ease of the insurance companies. The thought of wronging them would have
sat lightly on his soul.

Mr. Wedderburn took from this self-discussion a habit which remained
with him for all the rest of his life, the habit of shaking his head,
slowly, sadly to himself, as it were, as if in the course of some
remark. It was while he questioned, and doubted, and laid things
together, excusing his friend even while he judged him, that this habit
was acquired. It was not a bad habit for a lawyer who was consulted by
his clients on many delicate questions. It gave an air of regretful
decision, of compassion and sympathy, when he had conclusions to
announce that were not pleasant to his clients. And he never lost this
gesture of reflection and compassion, which was as sacred to Bob
Dalyell as his tombstone. It was thus, with many a vexing doubt and
fear, that he mourned the friend of his youth.

The female members of the party were happily exempted from all these
discussions. It does not often happen that the women have the lightest
part to bear in any such calamity. But in this case it was so. Mrs.
Dalyell mourned her husband most sincerely and deeply, forgetting every
little flaw in his character, and gradually elevating him into the
position of a perfect man--the best husband, the kindest father! And the
girls mourned him with torrents of youthful tears, with a conviction
that they never could smile again, never get beyond the blackness of the
first grief, the awful sensation of the catastrophe. But there was
nothing but pure sorrow in their minds. They thought no more of the
insurance companies than the birds in the garden think of the crumbs
miraculously provided for them when snow is on the ground. Neither had
the slightest doubt ever entered their minds as to what they were told
of his death. They knew every detail, laying it up in their hearts. How
he had parted smiling from his friend at the corner of the street, and
gone off to the sands with his buoyant step, in such health and
strength, in such good-will and good-humour with all the world. This was
what the girls said to themselves, trying to picture his last look upon
life. And they hoped it was some unsuspected failure of the heart, which
the doctor said was most likely--a thing which would give no pain, which
would be over in a moment, so that he would never know he was dying, or
have any pang of anxiety for those he was leaving behind. This was how
the girls realised their father’s death: and their mother’s picture of
it was not dissimilar. She felt that there must have been a moment in
which he thought of her and of “the bairns.” Mrs. Dalyell added that to
the imaginary scene--a moment in which, as people said was the case in
drowning, all his life would rush through his brain, and he would think
of her as he died. They had the best of it. Their innocent thoughts
conceived no ulterior scheme, no darkness of doubt. Had they realised
that any such doubt existed, it is probable that they would have
canonised poor Robert Dalyell on the spot as a hero and martyr, dying
for those he loved, and still never have thought of the insurance
companies; but, happily, no such imagination entered at all into their
simple thoughts.

The household had settled down completely into the habits of its new
life, when Fred Dalyell came home from a long wandering tour he had made
about Europe, not so much for love of travelling or desire to see
beautiful things and places, as to distract his mind from the miserable
thoughts that had gained so complete an empire over him. He had
succeeded very well in that, for the most persistent trouble yields to
such treatment at twenty; but the first return to Yalton, and all the
recollections that were waiting for him under those familiar trees,
brought back on the first coming much of the old trouble to the lad’s
sensitive mind. It was now May, and Yalton was almost as cheerful as
ever, though in a subdued way. The girls, “poor things,” as their mother
said, had recovered their spirits. They were so young!--and Fred’s
coming home had been a thing much looked for, like the beginning of a
new era to the young creatures over whom the winter of gloom was
naturally passing away. Susie and Alice were much disappointed by the
cloud that came over Fred after the first joy of their greetings.
Instead of sitting with them and telling them everything, he
disappeared on the first evening, with a sort of impatient, almost
angry, resistance of their blandishments.

“Oh, let me alone; I have a thousand things to think of,” he said,
pushing them away as the manner of big brothers is. Susie and Alice
forgave Fred when they saw the little red tip of his cigar on the
terrace, and realised that he had gone there “to think of father.” For a
moment it was debated between them whether one of them should not go to
him to share his solitude and thoughts; but they decided, with a better
inspiration, to leave him alone, and even withdrew delicately from the
drawing-room window, not to seem to spy upon his sacred thoughts.

“Oh, do you mind how papa used to go up and down, up and down?” said
Alice to Susie.

“Do I mind?” said Susie, half indignant. “Could I ever forget?” And they
shed a few tears together, then hurried off to the table in the full
light of the lamps, where Fred’s curiosities which he had brought home,
and all his little presents, were laid out for inspection, and began to
laugh and twitter over them, and compare this with that, like two
birds.

Yes, this was just the place where father had stood when he had suddenly
changed the conversation about the bump-suppers, and all the joys of
Oxford, to that strange and sober talk about the vicissitudes of life,
and what a difference a day might make in the position of a happy lad at
college, thinking of nothing but fun and frolic. Fred remembered every
word, every look--the wail of the autumnal wind, the clear break of sky
among the clouds towards the west, the half shock, half amusement, with
which he had felt that sudden change into what in those days of levity
he had called the didactic in his father’s tone. It had seemed to him a
sermon at the time; and then it had seemed to him--he knew not what--an
awful advertisement of what was coming: a prophecy conscious or
unconscious. He walked up and down, up and down under the trees, hearing
the same sounds, the tinkle of the half-choked fountain, the rustling of
the wind among the branches. The sentiment of the night was different,
for that had been in September, and this was full of the soft and
hopeful stir of May. The leaves were falling then; now they were but
just opened, hanging in clusters of vivid young green, which almost
forced colour upon the paleness of the wistful night. But nothing else
was as it had been then. His father was gone, swept from the earth as
though he had never been. Yet this great change had not brought the
other changes which Mr. Dalyell anticipated. Fred had not been forced
into the premature development of a young head of the family. He had not
been plunged into care and trouble, into work and anxiety. If anything,
he had been more free than before. He was still only a youth dallying
upon the edge of life, not a man entering into serious duties. The
contrast struck him strangely. This was not what his father had
foreseen. It gave him a vague new trouble in his mind to perceive that
this was so. He ought to be less free, perhaps more occupied, more
responsible. He could not all at once decide what the difference was.

Here he was suddenly disturbed by the sound of a step upon the
gravel--and it is to be feared that Fred uttered within himself an
impatient exclamation, as he threw away the end of his cigar. “Here is
one of those bothering girls,” he said to himself, though we know with
what high reason and feeling Susie and Alice had withdrawn, even from
the window, not to seem to spy upon their brother. He got up to meet
them, remembering that he had just come home and that it would be brutal
to show any impatience of their affection. But Fred might have known
that the heavy, slow step which approached him was not that of either of
the girls. A tall figure shaped itself out of the darkness--the white
mutch, the bow of black ribbon, the checked shawl, became dimly visible.

“Eh, Mr. Fred,” said old Janet, “but I’m blythe to see you home!”

“Oh,” he said, “it’s you!” in a tone which was not encouraging. He had
forgotten old Janet, happily, and it was with anything but pleasure that
he felt her image thus thrust upon him again.

“Who should it be but me?” she said. “There is none that can take such
an interest. And, Mr. Fred, it is time you should be taking your ain
place. This house of Yalton should go into no other hands but them it
belongs to. Oh, I canna speak more plain; but you must rouse yourself
up, and you must take your ain place.”

“I don’t know what you have to do with it,” cried Fred angrily, “nor why
you should thrust your advice upon me. I am here in my own place. What
do you mean? I ought to be at Oxford, that would be my own place.”

“Na, na! that would be just more schooling,” said Janet, “and it’s no
schooling you want, but to stand up like a man, and be maister of your
father’s house, as is your right. Oh, laddie, I tell you I canna speak
more plain; but take you my word, it’ll save more trouble, and worse
trouble, if you will just grip the reins in your hands and take your ain
place!”

He laughed contemptuously in his impatience and anger. “You had better
save your advice for things you understand,” he said. “Don’t you know
the law considers me an infant, and that I can do nothing till I’m of
age--if there was anything to do? But all is going as well as can
be--almost too well--as if he were not missed,” the young man cried
abruptly with a movement of feeling, which indeed was momentary and had
not come into his mind before. Perhaps it was an influence from the
brain of the old woman beside him which sent it there now.

“That’s just what I wanted to say,” said old Janet--“as if _he_ were not
missed. All settled for her, and smoothed down and made fair and easy,
as if _himsel_’ were to the fore. There’s trouble in the air, Mr. Fred,
and if you dinna bestir yourself, and take your ain place, and get a
grip of the reins in your ain hand----”

“Rubbish!” said Fred. “How can I get the reins, till I come of age? If
there was any need, which there is not, my mother knows better than half
a dozen of me.”

“Your mother!” said old Janet, with the natural contempt of an old
servant for the mistress; then she added in a different tone: “if it was
only your mother”--shaking her old head.

“Who else?” said Fred with indignation. But Janet made no reply. She
turned her back upon him and went off along the terrace, always shaking
her head, which was slightly palsied and had a faint nodding motion
besides. Something in this confirmed movement which was comic, and the
jealousy of his mother, which had always been a well-known feature in
old Janet, tended to give a ludicrous character to her appeal. Instead
of deepening the sadness of his thoughts, it lightened them with a
curious sense of relief. It seemed to take away at once the gravity of
the recollection of his father’s reference to her, and the painful
suggestion in it which had caused Fred so much trouble, when old Janet
thus displayed herself in an absurd rather than a tragical light.




CHAPTER VI.


Mr. Wedderburn entered very naturally into the charge of his friend’s
affairs. He had been Dalyell’s counsellor already on many occasions in
his life, and knew much about his concerns, the resources of the estate,
and all the original sources of income which Dalyell had increased, yet
fatally risked, by his speculations. No one was better fitted than he to
apply the welcome aid of the insurance moneys to the relief of Yalton
from all the encumbrances which the dead man’s other affairs had
imported into his life. A man so familiar with the household and all its
affairs, nobody could know so well as he how to guide the revenues of
the household so as to afford their usual comforts to Mrs. Dalyell and
the girls without injuring Fred’s interests, or forgetting the very near
approach of the time when he should take the control into his own hands.
It was evident that changes were inevitable then; either that Mrs.
Dalyell should retire to a house of her own, or that she should remain
as Fred’s housekeeper, with her authority contingent upon his plans,
and liable to be destroyed whenever the young man should think of
marriage--a position in which the faithful friend of the house was
unwilling to contemplate the mistress of Yalton. It was not a thing that
would have affected Mrs. Dalyell. It would not have occurred to her to
think that the house was less hers by being Fred’s. But Mr. Wedderburn
was jealous of her dignity, and it wounded a certain imaginative sense
of fitness for which no one would have given the dry old lawyer
credit--the notion that the woman whom he had so long admired and liked
should be dependent on her boy’s caprice and whether it should please
him or not to marry. The event which would make another change, so
great, in her position, troubled him more than he could say. Was it not
enough, he asked himself, that she should have had this shock to bear,
and her life rent in two, that she should now have to yield all
authority to Fred, and be dependent upon him for her home and dignity?
The thought did not disturb Mrs. Dalyell, who felt it as natural to
continue as before at the head of a house, which was no less hers
because her son was now its formal head, as to perform any other act of
life. But it did disturb her champion and guardian, who made it more and
more his office from day to day to watch over her comfort and spare her
trouble.

It was astonishing how Pat Wedderburn, who had not for many years,
indeed for all his independent life, known more of the sweets of
domesticity than those which he shared at second-hand in the houses of
his friends, and especially at Yalton, fell into the ways of the head of
a family. He did not, indeed, come out to Yalton every night as poor
Dalyell had done, but he spent at least half of his evenings there, and
gave his mind to the consideration of what was wanted in the house, and
what would be agreeable to both mother and girls, with a curious
familiar devotion which was at once amusing and touching. No father
probably ever was so mindful of the tastes of his children as Mr.
Wedderburn was of Susie and Alice. He remembered what they liked, and
noted every expression of a wish with an affectionate vigilance and
thoughtfulness which surprised even the girls, though they were well
accustomed to have their little caprices considered. As for Mrs.
Dalyell, no wife ever had her likings more sedulously consulted, her
suggestions more carefully carried out, than were hers by her
co-executor, her trustee, and fellow-guardian of the children. She had
but to speak to Mr. Wedderburn about any trifling obstacle and it was
immediately removed out of their way. He regarded her wants and wishes
as things which were sacred; not as a husband does, whose natural
impulse it is to contest, if not to deny. Life had never been made so
easy for the ladies of Yalton. When he came out it was almost certain
that some pleasant surprise accompanied him--a book, a present,
something that either girls or mother had wished for. And they all took
Mr. Wedderburn as completely for granted as if this devotion had been
the most natural thing in the world.

And it would be impossible to describe the sweetness that came into the
life of old Pat Wedderburn (as Edinburgh profanely called him) from this
amateur performance, so to speak, of the duties of husband and father.
He had long been in the habit of considering Yalton as a sort of home.
But yet his visits there, though he was always so welcome, were more or
less at the pleasure of his hosts, and he had kept up the form, though
it was not much more than a form, of being invited. Now no such
restraint (though it had never been much of a restraint) existed. He put
a certain limit upon himself, but save for that the house of his wards
was to him as his own, always open, always ready. They were all his
wards, the mother not less than the children. It is true she was joined
with him in the trust, and that she was a woman, as he said to himself,
of a great deal of sense, who could give him advice upon many subjects,
and even took or appeared to take an intelligent interest in
investments, and knew whether the claims of the farmers were just, and
what was right in respect to repairs, &c., better than Mr. Wedderburn
himself. But she had never been accustomed to do anything for herself,
to act independently, to take any step without advice and active help.
It is impossible to say how pleasant it was to the middle-aged bachelor
to be thus referred to at every moment asked about everything, consulted
in every domestic contingency. He would not have minded even had he been
called upon to settle difficulties with the servants, or subdue a
refractory cook, nor would it have bored him to have a housekeeper’s
afflictions in this way poured into his ears.

Happily, however, in the large easy-going household at Yalton there were
few difficulties of that kind. Mrs. Dalyell was an excellent manager,
but she was not exacting, and her servants were chiefly old servants,
who ruled the less permanent kitchen-maids, footboys, &c., under them
with rods of iron, but did not trouble the mistress with their
imperfections. When a house has been long established on such a footing,
and there is no overwhelming necessity for economy, or interfering
dispositions on the part of its head, it is wonderful how smoothly it
will roll on, notwithstanding all human weaknesses. And the shadow of
grief glided away. There could not have been a more desirable house, or
a more pleasant routine of life. The very neighbourhood breathed peace
into Wedderburn’s being. Before he had reached the gates the atmosphere
of content enveloped him. He had something in his pocket for the
girls--he had something to consult their mother about, generally her own
business, but sometimes even his, so great a confidence was he acquiring
in her common-sense. To think that the loss of poor Bob Dalyell should
have brought so great an acquisition of happiness into his life! He was
ashamed when he came to think of it, and felt a compunction as if he had
profited by his friend’s disaster. But it was no fault of his.

And there was no doubt that Mr. Wedderburn enjoyed Yalton and the life
there a great deal more than if he had been really the father whose
office as far as possible he had taken upon himself. He was not
responsible for the faults or aggrieved by the imperfections of the
children, as a man is to whom they belong. The very distance between
them increased the charm. Although it would have been death to him to
have been thrust out of that paradise, it would perhaps have lessened
its charm had he been absolutely swept into it, bound to it, by law and
necessity. The freedom of the voluntary tie added sweetness to the bond.
He was far more at the orders of his adopted family than any father
would have been; but that shyness of old bachelorhood, which is as real
as the reserve of old maidenhood and very similar, though it is little
remarked, was in no way ruffled or wounded by the present arrangement.
And thus good came out of all the evil, to one at least of the little
circle who had been so deeply affected by it. Poor Bob D’yell!--to think
that he should have lost all this, and that his most devoted friend
should have acquired it by his loss! This gave Mr. Wedderburn a
compunction which was of course entirely fictitious and visionary--for
had he not taken that position it would have been much worse for the
family as well as for himself.

This state of affairs was scarcely interrupted by Fred’s majority, for
Fred, no more than any other member of the household, considered that it
made any difference. Of course, in the progress of time he would marry,
and probably desire to be as his father had been. But, in the meantime,
he felt himself no less a boy on the morning after his twenty-first
birthday than he had done the morning before; and the idea of taking the
reins out of his mother’s hands or desiring more freedom than he
actually possessed, especially the freedom of turning her out of the
house which was now legally his, or disturbing any of her arrangements,
never occurred to Fred. Young people brought up under such an easy sway
as that of Mrs. Dalyell do not feel the temptation of rushing wildly
into freedom as soon as it is legally their own. Fred had always been
free, and he could not be more so, because his name was now at the head
of all the family affairs, and Frederick Dalyell, Esq., was now the
official proprietor at Yalton. What difference did it make? The family
generally said none. Of course, Fred, as the only son and the eldest,
would have been paramount in the house under any circumstances; he could
not be more than paramount now. But it was not to Fred that Mrs. Dalyell
looked for help and advice, any more than it had been before; this
birthday did not add experience or wisdom to the boy. And Mr. Wedderburn
came and went just the same, looking after Fred’s interests, spoiling
the girls, always ready to be referred to. It made no difference, nor
did anybody wish that it should, except perhaps old Janet, whose opinion
was not thought much of, whom Fred avoided carefully, and whose very
existence was scarcely realised by the adviser of the house. As for Fred
himself, his troubled thoughts had worn themselves out. Whatever trouble
there may be in the mind respecting a man who has been in his grave for
more than a year, it dies away under the progress of gentle time. To
keep up the pressure of such misery there must be new events occurring
or to be dreaded. What is altogether past affects the spirit in a
different way. If there was a tragic secret unrevealed in the story of
Robert Dalyell’s death, it was hidden for ever in the bitter waves that
had swallowed him up: and the course of his young life had gradually
swept from Fred’s mind the burden of his father’s tragedy. He had
decided to go back to Oxford at the end of the first year, and he was
still continuing his unlaborious studies there when the second had
ended, and October, with its shortening days and windy skies, returned
again. The vacation had been a lively one to Fred, and Mrs. Dalyell had
been obliged to come out of the seclusion of her widowhood on account of
Susie, whose introduction to the world could not be postponed any
longer. Mrs. Dalyell herself was not unwilling that it should be so. She
was entirely contented in her home-life, yet pleased to vary it when
need was, and the more smiling and brilliant side of things no longer
jarred upon her feelings. And Susie, in all the fervour of her first
season (though it was only in Edinburgh), was as happy as the day.

Thus it was, upon a household as cheerful as could be seen, that the
shadows began to lengthen in that October, a little before the end of
the vacation, when Fred, who had exhausted his own covers with the
assistance of his friends, was flitting about the country in a series of
“last days” before he went back to his college. Fred’s friends of the
shooting parties had made the house very gay for the girls, and Mr.
Wedderburn had thought it expedient to “put in an appearance,” as he
said, even more frequently than usual, to support Mrs. Dalyell and help
to preserve the balance of the house. He came “out” four or five nights
in the week to the house which became daily more and more like his home,
and found a continually increasing charm in the sight of the pleasure of
the young ones and in the company of their mother. While they were
carrying on their amusements, he considered it only his duty to sit by
Mrs. Dalyell and keep her as far as possible from feeling the blank of
the empty place. They could talk to each other, as only old friends
can--of the people and places they had mutually known all their lives,
of the different dispositions of the children, of Robert, how pleased he
would have been to see them so happy, of the beasts in the little
home-farm; and of the new leases, and the new Lord of Session, and the
Queen’s visit to Edinburgh, and everything indeed that came within the
range of their kindly world. It was very pleasant: Mrs. Dalyell found it
so, who was thus able to relieve her mind of any remark that occurred to
her, which the young ones were too hasty or too much occupied to listen
to; and Mr. Wedderburn liked it still better, feeling that he himself,
who had never ventured to risk any of the great undertakings of life,
had thus come to have the cream and perfection of quiet social comfort,
without paying for it, without cost to himself or wrong to any one in
life.

On one such evening Mrs. Dalyell had been called away on some domestic
errand, and Mr. Wedderburn, feeling thus a little left to himself,
strolled out upon the terrace to look at the rising moon and to enjoy
the softness of the evening, one of the last perhaps before the winter
came on. It was a still night, and the temperature was high for the time
of year. The country had been blazing in the sunlight with all the
colours of the autumn, and even the moon brought out the yellow
lightness in the waving birches, if not the russet reds and browns of
the deeper foliage. Nothing could be more still: the sky resplendent,
with here and there a puff of ethereal whiteness, a cloud scarcely to be
called a cloud, imperceptibly floating upon a breeze that was scarcely
to be called a breeze--a soft sigh of night air. It was so warm that he
did not hesitate to sit down, though at fifty-seven one is cautions
about sitting down in the open-air in October, even in the day. But the
night was very soft, and so were Mr. Wedderburn’s thoughts. It cannot be
said they were sentimental, much less impassioned. He wanted no more
than he possessed, the loving kindness of this house, the affection of
the children, the friendship and trust of their mother. He was entirely
satisfied to come and go, to feel that he was of use to them, to enjoy
their society. A great sense of well-being filled his mind as he sat
there and heard the sound of their young voices gay and sweet coming
from the billiard-room, where Fred and a friend or two were amusing the
girls. There was something like a suggestion that more might come of
that partnership of jest and play which was springing up between pretty
Susie and one of these young men--dear little Susie!--who had given up
her big words, but whom her father’s friend still corrected and petted
with fatherly tenderness. If it were possible to feel more fatherly than
old Pat Wedderburn, the dry old Edinburgh lawyer, felt as he sat there
and smiled in the dark at the sound of Susie’s voice, I do not know what
that quintessence of paternity could be.

He was thus sitting in quiet enjoyment of the solitude (which is so much
sweeter a thing with the sense of the near vicinity of those we love
than when we are really alone) and his own thoughts, when he saw, as
Fred had done on a previous occasion, a tall figure rise as it were out
of the soil and approach through the dark--a shadow, but with that
independent movement of a living creature which is so instantly
distinguishable from any combination of shadows. Mr. Wedderburn was not
superstitious, but the figure as it came slowly towards him was one
which he did not recognise, and he was astonished at its intrusion here.
He rose up to intercept it--whether it was an unlawful visitor prowling
round perhaps to see the handiest way of entry into an unsuspicious
house, or some lover bound for a rendezvous, or some servant come out
unconscious of observation to take the air. But the new-comer was not
afraid of his observation, and he now made out that it was a large old
woman in her checked shawl and white cap. Even then Mr. Wedderburn did
not recognise the old woman, with whose appearance he was but slightly
acquainted. She stopped when they met and made him a slow curtsey,
leaning upon a stick. It was too dark for him to see her face.

“Did you want anything with me, my woman?” said Mr. Wedderburn.

“Ay, sir,” she said, “I just do that. You’ll maybe not know me. I’m
Janet Macalister, that was nurse to Mr. Robert D’yell.”

“I have often heard of you,” said Mr. Wedderburn, “and I am glad to see
you, Janet; not that I do see you, for the night’s dark. And this is not
an hour for you to be out at your years. If you have anything to say to
me we would be better in the library or the hall.”

“Sir,” said Janet, “what I have to say is not for any place where we can
be seen. I came out here that naebody might suspect I took such a thing
upon me; and yet I’m forced to it--though I canna tell you why.”

“This sounds very mysterious,” said Mr. Wedderburn; “but I hope there’s
nothing very wrong.”

“Mr. Wedderburn,” said Janet, “you’re very often at our house.”

“Eh!” cried Mr. Wedderburn, in amazement, “at your house? Oh, you mean
at Yalton, I suppose. And have you any objections to that?”

“Yes, sir,” said Janet firmly, “the greatest of objections. Do you not
know, Mr. Wedderburn, that the mistress is still but a young woman (to
have such a family), and that she is a widow with naebody to defend her
good name--and here are you, a marriageable man, haunting her house
every night of your life. Bide a moment, sir, and listen to me. Oh, it’s
nothing to laugh at--it’s just very serious. You are here morning, noon,
and night”--(here there was a murmur from the unfortunate man of “No,
no! not so bad as that”)--“and I ask ye to take your ain sense and
judgment to your help and tell me what folk will think that sees that?”

“Think!” faltered Mr. Wedderburn. “Woman, you must have taken leave of
your senses. What is it you mean?--and what should they think but that
I’m the friend of the family and a very attached one, and that it’s my
business to be here?”

“Oh, sir, ye’ll not content your ain judgment with that, far less the
rest of the world! It’s no business that brings ye here. Ye come because
you’re fain and fond to come. I am the oldest person about the house,
and it would ill become me to see my bairn’s wife put in a wrong
position, and never say a word. Sir, the mistress is a bonnie and a
pleasant woman.”

“I have nothing to say against that.”

“And no age to speak of. And you yoursel’ what are ye? Comparatively
speaking, a young man.”

“Comparatively in the furthest sense. I am much obliged to you, Janet.”

“Don’t think, sir,” said Janet, solemnly, “that you can carry it off
with a laugh. I will not see the mistress put in a wrong position, and
never say a word. It may be want of thought; but you must see, if you
consider, that she’s not like a young lass to be courted and married.
And still less is she one to be made a talk of in all the country side.
I will not have my mistress exposed to detractions, and none to the
fore to put a stop to them!” said Janet with excitement, striking her
staff on the gravel.

Mr. Wedderburn stood, feeling the old woman tower over him with her
palsied head and threatening air; he was half angry, half amused, wholly
discomfited and startled. The situation was ludicrous, and yet it was
embarrassing. To be startled out of the happiness of his thoughts by
such an interruption, brought to book by an old servant, warned as it
were off the premises by the nurse, was almost too whimsical and absurd
a position to be treated as serious; and yet there was an uncomfortable
reality at the bottom which he could not elude.

“Janet,” he said, “my woman--do you not think you are going a little too
far? I was just as often at this house when Robert D’yell himself was
here.”

“No, Mr. Wedderburn, not half so often.”

“Nonsense, woman, much more often! and in any way I am not answerable to
you. The last thing I could think of,” he added in a troubled tone,
“would be to--would be---- You are daft, Janet! I’m their trustee and
the nearest of their friends; how dare you say a word about my visits?
I will say nothing to your mistress, but I must request you to refrain
from such remarks, or else----”

“Sir,” cried Janet, “you needna threaten me, for you’re not the master
here!”

“No, I am not the master here,” said Mr. Wedderburn; “but if you think
anybody will have encouragement to set up ill stories about---- No,” he
said, checking himself, “I will not blame you with that. You’ve made a
mistake; but no doubt your meaning was good--only never let me hear it
any more.”

“Oh, sir,” cried Janet, “the human heart’s an awfu’ deceitful thing. I
could find it in my heart to go down on my knees, and beg you--oh, for
the Lord’s sake!--to go away before there’s any harm done from this
misfortunate house.”

“The woman’s daft!” cried Mr. Wedderburn.

But it gave him a dazed and troubled look when he appeared in the
drawing-room some time later. He was very silent all the rest of the
evening, sometimes casting an almost furtive look round him from one
face to another; sometimes red, sometimes pale. Once or twice he broke
out into a curious laugh when there seemed little occasion for it. “I
am afraid you have taken cold, Mr. Wedderburn; it was too late to be
sitting out on an October night,” said Mrs. Dalyell.

“I don’t think I’ve taken cold--but I think I’ll return to my room, with
your kind permission, for I have some things to plan out,” said the
lawyer. It was so unlike him that they all agreed something must be the
matter. Had he got bad news? Had he been troubled about business?
“Perhaps he had taken something that had disagreed with him,” Mrs.
Dalyell suggested. Whatever it was, he was not like himself.

No, he was very unlike himself. He gave a shame-faced look in the glass
when he went to his room, and burst out into a low, long laugh. “I’m a
pretty person!” he said to himself. And then he became suddenly
grave--graver, almost, than he had ever been in all his serious life.




CHAPTER VII.


It was not until Fred Dalyell’s return from Oxford in the spring that he
became aware of the rumour which had already begun to spread through the
neighbourhood and to be discussed in the Edinburgh drawing-rooms, that
his mother was about to marry again. He had seen when he returned home
that the girls were a little overcast and subdued, and that there was a
little flush as of uneasiness and embarrassment on Mrs. Dalyell’s face.
It is difficult at first for a long absent member of a family coming
back, to find such a cloud in the air, to discover whether this is only
the moment of a storm, whether it means some trifling disagreement--for
trifles become great in the inclosure of the household walls--or whether
something important and fundamental is intimated by these restrained
phrases and averted looks. He thought that perhaps there had been a
“breeze,” that Susie was getting into the wilful stage, and, distracted
by hopes and prospects of her own, had been opposing or defying her
mother; that the tenants had been troublesome, backward on rent-day, or
bothering about those eternal repairs, which he wondered that old
Wedderburn could allow to worry his mother. But this did not seem enough
to account for the visible but unexplained trouble in the house. When he
caught Susie by the arm and drew her aside to ask, “What’s the matter?”
she shook off his hand with a cry of “Oh, don’t ask me, Fred,” and
escaped from him, leaving him more bewildered than ever. What could it
mean? It seemed to the young man that they all avoided him on this first
evening of his return. His mother did not call him into her room to ask
those minute and repeated questions with which mothers are so apt to
tease their boys. “Oh, confound it! Now I am going to be put through my
catechism!” he said usually, when he was called to one of these
examinations; but its omission gave him a shock which was still more
disagreeable. Could it be possible that his mother did not want to see
him alone, and that the girls were afraid to be questioned by him? Fred
felt very uncomfortable, without the faintest notion what could be the
cause of it, when he perceived this constrained condition of the house.
Then it suddenly occurred to him that old Pat Wedderburn, as he was
generally and profanely called, had not come to meet him as had
invariably been the case till now.

“By the by,” he cried, “I felt that something was wanting, but I
couldn’t make out what it was. What has become of old Pat?”

“You should speak a little more respectfully, Fred, of our oldest
friend,” said his mother reproachfully; but she did not look at him, and
the flush grew deeper on her face, which was bent over her work. As for
Susie, she pushed her chair away, and almost turned her back upon her
mother. Fred immediately divined that old Pat had been objecting to some
of Susie’s flirtations, which was odd, as Susie was known to be his
favourite of all.

“Oh, I’m respectful enough,” he said. “I don’t mean any harm. The house
doesn’t seem natural without him. Why isn’t he here to-night?”

“He has not been with us quite so much of late,” said Mrs. Dalyell,
never lifting her eyes from her work; “but he is coming out to-morrow,
and he will tell you himself, Fred.”

“Has anything gone wrong?” he asked amazed; for the girls, whose voices
generally ran chattering through everything, and who on an ordinary
occasion would have thrown in half-a-dozen remarks, sat still as two
stone images, Susie with her head averted, Alice buried in a book, which
she held between her and the light.

“I request,” said Mrs. Dalyell, in a voice somewhat high-pitched and
imperative, as if she expected to encounter opposition, “that there be
no more about it till to-morrow night.”

“Oh, if it is me you mean, mamma, you may be sure there will be no more
about it--till Doomsday--from me!”

“Susie!” cried her brother in amazement. But Susie’s only reply was to
burst from the room in a flush of rage and opposition, such as Fred had
never seen in his quiet home before. Alice followed her quickly, and the
young man thought that now at last there was some chance of having it
out. “I suppose,” he said, “that old Pat has been at her for
flirting--the little pussy that she has grown.”

But before he had finished his little speech Mrs. Dalyell, too, had
risen from her chair, and, standing with her back to him, was putting
her work away.

“You must excuse me,” she said, “my dear boy, if I don’t enter into it
to-night. I’m--a little tired and put out. I must go and look after
those girls; and though it’s your first night at home, it’s late, and I
don’t think I shall come down again. After your journey, Fred, you
should go early to bed.”

“After my journey!” he cried with angry dismay. “What has my journey to
do with it? But never mind, mother, if you’re tired. I’ll come to your
room, and have a talk over the fire.”

“Not to-night,” she said, and kissed him. She lingered a moment, patting
him on the shoulder with her hand. “I know it must seem strange to you,
Fred--but not to-night, not to-night.”

As a matter of fact, the least imaginative of lookers-on will allow that
the position of a middle-aged mother who has to tell her grown-up son
that she is going to marry again must be an embarrassing one. Mrs.
Dalyell was not like a girl expecting ecstatic happiness in the union
with the man she loves. It was an arrangement which had come to seem
natural, partly because she wanted someone to lean upon, and
ill-natured gossips (as she heard) objected to that constant, easy,
unembarrassing presence of the household friend, which she and her
children had found so comfortable--without the existence of some closer
bond. She would rather honestly have had Mr. Wedderburn on his old
footing; but, if she could not have him on his old footing, it was
better to marry him than to lose him. This had been the unimpassioned
fashion of Mrs. Dalyell’s thoughts. And he wished it. A man, it
appeared, even at fifty-seven, could not content himself with the
friendship which was quite enough for a woman. Perhaps she was a little
flattered to know that this was so, and that in her mature matronhood
she still had charms. And she had thought, as he assured her, that it
would draw the family bonds closer and make so little difference. The
chief difference would be that he would come of right, instead of only
for love, and that the interests of her family would be his own, not
only much more than his own, as they were at present. It had seemed very
plausible, as he set all the advantages forth, which indeed Pat
Wedderburn had done, not only to calm her scruples, but also his own;
for, had she but known it, he too was very well contented with the
existing position of affairs. But if Mrs. Dalyell had known the trouble
it would have given her--the wild vexation of the girls, and the
horrible necessity of having to tell Fred! No, that last was what she
could not do. She had intended to do it on his return, but her courage
had failed her. Tell your grown-up son that you are going to marry! No,
no, she could not do it. And when two years had not yet elapsed from his
father’s death! “Oh,” she said to herself, “it was no wrong to Robert!
Oh, no, no wrong to Robert! It was a different thing, not to be thought
of in the same way.” But still, when it came to the point, she could not
do it, it was beyond her power.

Fred could not tell what to think: he was angry and vexed and cast down
by the strange reception he had received. The first night at home, which
was always so pleasant, the girls hanging about him with a hundred
things to ask and to tell, his mother beaming with affection and
pleasure on her united family. And here he was left alone, the lamps
burning with a sort of calm intelligence as if they knew all about it,
the clock chuckling at him on the mantel-piece. Foggo came in with the
tea-tray, and looked round in astonishment for the ladies, then shook
his head solemnly and went away, leaving the little silver kettle
boiling over its spirit-lamp. Foggo knew too. The very kettle puffed out
its steam in Fred’s face like a mockery. Everybody knew--except the
forlorn young master of the house, who knew nothing, and could not even
form a guess what the mystery could be.

He was not however destined to spend that night in uncertainty. As he
went upstairs, passing with a sense of injury the closed doors of his
mother’s and his sisters’ rooms, Fred heard himself called in a whisper
from the end of the corridor. Had he reflected for a moment he would
have known who it must be. But with his mind full of his present trouble
he did not reflect; he turned round quickly, hoping to see one of his
sisters, and it was not till he found himself in the clutches of old
Janet that he recognised the danger of her interference. “Has she told
ye, Mr. Fred?” whispered the old woman, approaching her formidable head
in the big mutch, and with its little palsied movement, to the young
man’s face. “Told me what?” he cried with impatience. “Oh, my bonnie
lad, dinna lose your temper--you’ll have need of all your patience.
That she’s going to be married upon Pat Wedderburn!”

Fred gave a hoarse cry, which ran along the whole corridor into his
mother’s closed room, who heard it and trembled--and to Susie’s, who sat
half desperate over her fire longing for her brother. Not for a moment
did Fred doubt the news: it explained everything; but he fled from the
creature of ill-omen, the woman who gave it, with a sense of hatred and
rage, for which indeed there was no warrant so far as she was concerned.
“This is your doing!” he cried with fantastic bitterness. Why should he
hate Janet, and how could it be her doing? he asked himself afterwards.
But at the moment it seemed to the distracted young man as if this old
retainer was one of the Fates, the enemy, not the friend of the house.
He would not wait to hear another word, but rushed upstairs and shut
himself in his room, as if some evil thing had been at his heels.
Married!--his mother, his father’s wife, the first authority of his
life--the woman without reproach--mamma! With that last baby-cry the cup
was filled. The young man flung himself upon his face on his bed. And
what an unhappy house it was which the darkness held that night
concealed in its outer mantle of peace! Unhappy without any cause, for
there was no evil going to be done--no harm: so far as any of these
troubled people knew.

Mr. Wedderburn, who came “out” next day with an embarrassment not less
than that of Mrs. Dalyell, was roused a little by the desperate
self-repression with which Fred received the official announcement. “My
boy,” he said, “it may vex you that there should be any change, but what
we are doing is no wrong to you--nor to any man.”

“I have not said it was,” said Fred sullenly.

“No, you have not said it was--but you seem to think it’s an
unpardonable step. It is nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Wedderburn,
indignant. “The time will come when you will think fit to marry, and
then your mother will be turned out of her house; and that will seem the
most natural thing in the world. Why should she not have one by her side
that will make her comfort his care? Your father would have wished it.
She’s not a person to stand alone to fight with the world.”

“She has her children.”

“Her children! Susie, who will have a husband of her own as soon as the
lad has enough to live on; and Alice, who will follow her sister’s
example; and you--when are you here to keep your mother company? A month
in the vacations when the house is full--and a marriage whenever it
strikes your fancy, with her turned adrift. No, no, my young man! You
may not like it, you may scorn both her and me for it. But that
face!--as if you were wronged and shamed. Come, come, Fred, that’s not
an air to put on with an old and faithful friend like me.”

“I know you are a faithful friend,” cried the young man resentfully. “I
never doubted you for a moment.”

“But never dreamed that I would push my devotion so far? Well, I have
done it, you see. And it’s your business, my young man, to make the best
of it, and accept what all the powers on earth shall not prevent, I
promise you,” cried the old lawyer with some heat. There were many
people throughout Scotland who were aware that it was not a safe thing
to go too far with old Pat Wedderburn.

Mrs. Dalyell, however, insisted upon one thing--that the marriage should
not take place until two years after her husband’s death, so that there
were yet several months of discomfort to get through. However it might
end, there could be little doubt that in the meantime an element of
extreme discomfort was brought into the house. Mr. Wedderburn, whose
happiness had been to spend half the evenings of his life at Yalton,
came less frequently and was not happy when he came. Susie had turned
into a little firebrand, all the more disdainful and offended by her
mother’s intentions that she was on the eve of a similar change in her
own person. Little Alice swayed from one party to the other, sometimes
impertinent, sometimes mournful. The step which was to bring additional
happiness in the end (or so it is the conventional necessity to suppose)
in the meantime brought nothing but discord, division and doubt, and
made the entire party unhappy. How much better, even the two principals
secretly thought in their hearts, to have gone on in the old happy
routine as things were!

Fred came home again in June after various wanderings, visits here and
there. He intended to go away before the marriage, and in the existing
state of circumstances to make as short a stay as he could at Yalton,
from which his mother meant to remove after this event, leaving the
house to be taken possession of by her son. Naturally it was not a very
joyful visit: the mother held her domestic place with a kind of
unsmiling composure, doing everything as before, ignoring as much as
possible the difference in her children’s faces; and a little polite
conversation went on between those who had been so happily united, and
twittered and chattered like the birds a few months before. Mrs. Dalyell
would not allow herself to be moved, would not show the impatience which
possessed her, kept firm with an immovable steadiness, letting the young
ones go and come without remark. It was more difficult for them, who
could not ignore her, and whose foolish young hearts were eagerly bent
on sending little darts into her, saying things between themselves which
she could scarcely resent, yet which went to her heart. And the girls
would drag their brother to the other end of the long drawing-room,
hanging one on each arm, talking low in his ear, while their mother sat
at the table by the lamp, apparently taking no notice. They were very
cruel to her, chiefly in ignorance, resenting the fact that she did not
mind, and unable to feel any human charity for her, as she sat there
isolated, conscious of their conspiracy against her. Mrs. Dalyell’s
spirit was roused a little by this persecution. She had been doubtful
enough of the expediency of what she was about to do from the first, but
she became more and more determined to hold to her resolution as they
thus united against her: and--what she never thought could have been the
case--began to long for the day when she should be delivered from this
domestic tyranny and once more breathe freely in an atmosphere where she
would not be constrained. Thus it may be supposed there was little
comfort one way or another in the troubled house; and it became the
order of the day to make the evening as short as possible, to go to bed
early, to finish upon any terms, at the earliest moment, the dreary,
unattractive evening hours.

Fred was following the little line of ladies with their candles up the
stairs, when he was once more stopped, but this time openly, by old
Janet. She came to the edge of the great staircase in her nodding mutch
and checked shawl. “Will you give me two or three minutes, Mr. Fred,”
she said.

“For what do you want two or three minutes? I have no time at present,”
he said quickly, for Susie, who was nearest to him in the procession,
had stopped upon the stairs, holding up her candle and looking back upon
him. She was like a picture, with her light held up and falling upon her
white dress.

“But you must come,” said Janet in a shrill whisper. “You must come.
Remember what your father said--and this time it’s a matter of life and
death.”

“How do you know what my father said?”

“Ay, that’s a question. Come with me, my bonnie man--oh, come with me
and you shall know all.”

Susie stood like a little light-bearer holding up the candle. “Who are
you talking to there, Fred, in the dark?”

“No one,” he said, with the prompt unconscious impulse of a child
accused.

“No one! Why, it’s Janet. Oh, is that all?” said Susie. She lowered her
light at once and turned away with the profoundest indifference. The
sight of Janet conveyed no sense of excitement or mystery to the girl
who saw her every day.

Fred obeyed the old woman sulkily and with the greatest reluctance. He
would not have done so at all had not Susie seen her. But he could not
show to Susie that he had any reluctance to speak to old Janet, whom the
younger members of the family had always held by against all the
objections of the younger servants. He went mechanically after her, with
a strong return of that resentment which he had felt against his father
for the recommendation to consult her. It was grievous to be made to
think of that at such a moment, when his father had become more sacred
to him than ever, in face of the desecrating change that was about to
take place, the injury to that beloved memory. It was the only grievance
Fred had against his father. He tried to force it from his mind, to have
patience with the old woman as he followed her. She belonged to _him_.
She had been faithful to him all his life. Perhaps she wanted to make
sure that she should be provided for when his mother left the place,
when Yalton was in his possession alone. Oh, certainly she should be
provided for, till her last hour! The only one that was faithful to
_him_. Neither friend nor wife had been faithful to him, but his old
nurse was faithful. She was sacred to his son for his sake.

Fred made his heart soft with these thoughts; he overcame his own
opposition almost altogether, partly with the sentiment of the nurse’s
faithfulness, partly with his resentment against the others; and he was
ready when he found himself in Janet’s room, face to face with her in
the light of her lamp, to offer her any assurance of his protection and
certainty she might require as to her living and her home. Janet,
however, put no question to him on any such score. She shut the door and
came up close to him in the lamp-light. “Mr. Fred,” she said, “you maun
take courage, my bonnie man. There are dreadful things to be said to you
to-night. Just summon all your strength and read that.”

Fred started at the sight of the paper she put before his eyes. “I see,”
he said, “it is my father’s writing. But you need not show me any
letter. He told me himself, the day before he died----”

“Oh, laddie, laddie! take it and read it before I go out o’ my senses,”
Janet cried.

He took the paper into his hands. His father’s handwriting, there could
be no doubt; but no suspicion of the truth was in Fred’s mind. He
glanced over it, and thought to himself that he had gone out of his
senses, as Janet said, or had lost himself in some incoherent dream. “My
wife’s marriage must be stopped.” What did that mean? A man who died two
years ago, how could he write about an event of to-day? Was he going
mad? Was he in a dream? Was it some delusion which she had put by
witchcraft before his eyes? “My wife’s marriage must be stopped.” “How
could he know?” he asked with blanched lips. “How could he tell there
would be a marriage?” He turned upon her a face blank of all expression,
pale, in a horror of enlightenment about to come.

“Oh, boy, boy! cannot ye see?” cried Janet. She put forth a long
trembling finger and thrust it at the paper, pointing to the date. Fred
looked and read. He read it a second time aloud, a strange terror
growing upon him: “June 3, 18--.” “Why,” he said, “why----.” Then,
stammering and stumbling over the words, broke down. “Why, why,” he
began again with a laugh, “we cannot all be mad and going to Bedlam!
It’s this year: June 3, 18--.”

The old woman grasped him by both his hands. “It’s this year--and we’re
no mad, though often, often I’ve felt on the edge of it. We’re no mad,”
she repeated, “and it’s this year, and the man that wrote that is in the
house this blessed night, Mr. Fred!”

God help the lad! He had but turned his black and terrible countenance
upon her, holding the letter helplessly in his hands, when there sounded
through the house, cutting the silence like a knife, a sudden wild cry,
a shriek, lasting only for a second, but piercing to the heart of the
night, to the heart of the house, like some sudden horrible event. It
was followed almost immediately after by a rush of muffled feet along
the passage: the door was pushed open violently, yet silently, and
someone came in like a shot from a pistol, as sudden and unexpected.
Fred felt himself shrink towards the wall in his horror and amaze. It
was a man who had come in--a man with a beard which covered half his
face, yet showed a curious kind of smile coming out of the midst of it,
though the eyes were full of an almost tragic seriousness. Fred had
fallen back against the wall as this new-comer appeared. The room swam
round and round in his eyes, a darkness came over him, he saw nothing
for a moment: then slowly came to himself, and saw again, within reach
of him, so near that he could have touched him, this man--whom he had
never seen before. Oh, could he but have been sure that he had never
seen him before! His heart stopped beating--and then with a flutter and
a spring went on again, as if it would have leaped out of his breast.
The shock of the supernatural, the horror of an awful discovery, came
into the young man’s brain and almost paralysed it as they clashed
together. Ah, had it been but the supernatural! But as that face emerged
out of the mist, Fred saw that it was that of a living man--and that he
heard it talking--_it_--as living men do.

“You have told him, Janet?”

“No a moment too soon--just as you were coming. Let the laddie be, let
him come to himself. And what was it you were doing? Did she--or
you----?”

“I have given her a fright that will put a stop to that,” he said, with
a strange laugh, hard and harsh: and then he flung himself into a chair,
throwing off a dark cloak in which he had been wrapped from head to
foot. He added after a moment with a groan, “The way of transgressors is
hard!” and hid his face in his hands.

Fred had not moved nor said a word, neither had this strange intruder,
save for one glance, taken any notice of him. The young man stood up
against the wall, supporting himself by it in a sort of conscious swoon
and suspense of being. A moment is like an hour in such a horror of
discovery; the idea that was too dreadful to entertain becomes possible,
certain, familiar, before you have had time to draw a second breath. His
father not dead--not a shameful suicide to cheat the insurance companies
as his son had once feared--but a still more shameful survivor, having
cheated them, having saved his family and cleared his name by the most
dreadful, the most false of frauds, the most tremendous of lies. Fred’s
whole being surged up like a stormy sea in fierce and violent reaction
as soon as he got command again of his stunned faculties--he who had
suffered so much misery from the thought that his father had taken his
own life in his despair, but who had of late become so tender of his
memory, so indignant with those who forgot or were faithless to him! And
lo, all his pangs were unnecessary, all his love deceived, and here was
the man, living!--a swindler, and a cheat, worse than a bankrupt--having
saved his reputation and the comfort of his family by a cheat, the
worst of frauds, the most disgraceful. Fred had been ready to defy the
world for his father when he came upstairs that evening. He turned now
with loathing from the name. Father! What did the word mean?--a cheat, a
swindler, the most prodigious and incredible of liars. The youth was
hard, as youth is, stern and inexorable. He took nothing into account,
neither the motive nor the tremendous sacrifice involved, nor least of
all the thought that he himself had profited by this dreadful act.
Profited?--he?--Fred? His first act must be to denounce the fraud, to
offer restitution. The man should escape first--that he would allow, but
no more.

Old Janet came up to him and laid her hand upon his shoulder. “Oh, Mr.
Fred, are you not going to say a word to him?--not a word of kindness?
Oh, Mr. Fred, your father! that has sacrificed just everything in the
world.”

“I have no father,” said Fred hoarsely. “My father is dead.”

The unfortunate man raised his head from his hands, and the familiar
eyes, the eyes that had smiled upon the boy’s childhood, but which
smiled no more, tragic in the misery of a renunciation which was more
bitter--but, alas! not honourable like death--turned towards the stern
and angry boy with a strange look, not of appeal, but of surprise. The
offender knew very well all that was involved to himself in what he had
done. He knew that it cut him off as a living man from all knowledge of
his family, from all possibility of reunion--that he was dead and worse,
so far as old surroundings were concerned; but he was not prepared for
his son’s stern condemnation. He had anticipated wonder,
consternation--but, oh, surely some touch of pleasure in seeing him
restored from the dead, some burst of welcome from Fred! He uncovered
his face and looked with a ghastly astonishment at the son who thus cast
him off without a word.

“Maister Freddie, for God’s sake! think what you are saying. Speak a
word to him!”

“I have nothing to say,” said Fred. “I will make the truth known in a
week from this time--if it is the truth. I will be no party to a fraud.
I loved my father that died, and his memory, but I can be no party to a
fraud. In a week’s time----”

The stranger never said a word; he sat gazing with things unutterable
in his eyes, wonder above all. His boy! it was cruel, barbarous,
inhuman; but--this strange visitor did not condemn the youth. He looked
at him with an inconceivable surprise--his boy--Fred! He did not make
any protest, but sat up, strangely awakened--wondering: even the object
of his visit fading in comparison with this shock for which he was not
prepared.

All this time there had been sounds of rushing footsteps and ringing of
bells through the house, the commotion of some sudden event breaking
into the quiet of the night. And then came a distant sound of Susie’s
voice, calling: “Fred! Fred!” The young man’s heart was rent with
passionate emotion, such as he had never known in his life before.

“Nobody must come in here,” he said, “to find a stranger in the house.
If my mother has been frightened, I will tell her. But not if I can help
it. Now, the only thing remaining for me is to make the truth
known--when----” He paused. He could not address that dreadful spectre
directly; his heart was bitter within him at the man who had thus killed
for ever his father’s memory, the ideal which he had cherished in his
father’s name. “When----he has decided what to do.”

There was a dreadful pause in Janet’s room when the young man went away.
Then the stranger said in a musing tone: “So that’s what Fred has come
to in a couple of years. You see, Janet, you have not been so successful
as you thought.”

“Oh, my man, oh, my bonnie man! the callant is just distracted with
wonder and fear.”

“There’s more in it than that--and he’s right, Janet. We were wrong, you
and I. And I must just abide the consequences. I’ll lie down on your bed
for an hour or two, if you’re sure it’s safe. And then I’ll take the
gate. It will be for ever this time, you can tell that boy. I’ll neither
make nor meddle more; and if he’s wise he’ll let sleeping dogs lie.”




CHAPTER VIII.


Robert Dalyell stole forth from the house which was his own, yet could
never more be his, in what would have been the dead of night had it been
any other season but June and any place but a northern country. It was
already daylight, with a pearl-like radiance as of spiritual day, and
something more mystic and almost awful in the silence of night, combined
with this diffusion of lovely light, than any darkness could have been.
He seemed to see the great spreading landscape like a picture, with his
own single and solitary figure in it, with a momentary terror of himself
alone in that great surrounding silence. He was not afraid of being
seen, as he was when he had stolen under cover of the brief darkness
into the house; but it occurred to him that anybody who should look out
of a curtained window or from the crevice of a closed shutter, and see
him walking along at an hour when nobody was abroad, would be afraid of
him as an unnatural wanderer in the wide brightness which was night. He
was in point of fact a ghost, as he had been believed to be--a man with
no place or meaning in the world, with his name upon a funeral tablet,
and his place knowing him no more; and like a ghost he passed through
the pale diffused light which cast no shadow. Never man was in a
position more strange and cruel. He had made the sacrifice of his life,
not as his son and his friend had feared, by suicide, but in a more
dreadful way. He had put himself to death, and yet he lived. The man had
been in this living death for nearly two years. He had lost
everything--himself, his name, and his personal identity, as well as
wife and children, and home and living. And yet he had never fully
realised what it was till now. Something of the Bohemian, something of
the adventurer in the man, which had been hidden under the most decorous
exterior for nearly fifty years, had made that curious new start in
existence almost amusing to him in its absolute novelty and relief from
the long monotony of usual life.

Even his sudden going home, with the object of frightening his wife out
of a marriage which would have been no marriage, had something of the
character of a jest in it. But there was no longer any jest in the
matter. He had seen his wife, he had seen his son, and he was at last
aware of what it was he had done--the darker aspect of it--the dishonour
to others, the deadly extinction of himself, the end of everything which
he had accomplished, almost with a light heart. A ghost indeed,
offending the eyes and chilling the very soul of those who were most
near and dear to him. “A swindler,” the boy had said. Was he a swindler?
To be sure the insurance offices would never have paid that money had
they known; but surely he had paid the price for it. He had died to all
intents and purposes. He had given himself for his children--a living
sacrifice--not less, but more than if he had really died and been thrown
up by the sea, as everybody believed, on Portobello sands. It is hard to
see guilt in a transaction, not for your own advantage, for which you
have given your life. Robert Dalyell did not blame his son; he could
perceive that there was much in what Fred said, though his heart swelled
in his breast against that injustice. He was not angry with Fred, but
much impressed, and moved (strangely enough) to something like
satisfaction by his son’s demeanour. The boy was a good boy, wounded in
his honour, and therefore inexorable, but only as a good man would wish
his boy to be. He was glad Fred was an honourable fellow, feeling it
like that. Poor Dalyell himself had all the instincts and habits of mind
of an honourable man; he had not seen the dishonour in it; he had
thought that, giving his life for it as he had done, there was nothing
morally wrong in his act. Surely he had bought the money dear: it was
not for him; it was for them, and for their good. There they were, all
of them--the wife who was about to give him a successor within two
years, and the boy who was himself his successor--safe in Yalton,
honoured, respected, enjoying the position to which they were born:
while he was an outcast, without anything but what he made for himself,
and the boy called him a swindler! He was an honest boy for all that,
and Dalyell’s mind had a certain forlorn satisfaction in it: though a
more forlorn being than he, walking, walking like a ghost through that
morning light which began in its pearly paleness to warm to the rising
of the sun, could not be. It was wonderful at what leisure he was, in
the utter forlornness of his being, to think of them all. He was not
sorry that he had given himself to save them. The only thing he was
sorry for was that, being dead, he had interfered at all. He ought to
have gone upon his own way--married, too, as he might have done, and got
himself new ties in his new life. He believed now that there would have
been no harm in that. There would be no harm in it. He would get away as
quickly as it was practicable, and get back to his new world, and this
time he would feel himself really emancipated. He would think no more of
the bonds of the past. She should be free to marry if she liked, and so
would he. This old world and he had nothing to do with each other any
more.

The foolish thing was that he had come at all on this fool’s errand. It
was all the old woman’s fault. It had been weak of him to let her into
his secret, to keep himself up with news of home, to be moved by her
horror at this marriage. Why should not she marry if she wished to do
so? She had been a good wife to him, and he had made her a widow. He had
known that she was not a woman who could act for herself, that she was
one who must have a caretaker, a manager of external matters? Why should
he interfere with her? It was all that confounded old woman’s scruples.
But Dalyell decided that he would interfere no more, that he would go
back whence he came and marry too, and thus justify his wife. The man’s
heart was very heavy in his breast when he made this resolution; but yet
he had a great courage, and was determined to stand up against fate and
get a new life for himself, being thus horribly, hopelessly cut off from
the old. The boy would not carry out his threat if he disappeared thus,
and was heard of no more. And all would be well with them, all would go
right, as he had meant it should when he gave up his life.

By this time the sun had risen, the birds had begun to twitter and hold
their morning conversations about all the business of life before it was
time to tune up for the concert of the day. Where was he going? He had
left such things as he had brought with him at a little lonely wayside
public-house near the sea before he went to Yalton, but it was still too
early to get admittance there. He found himself on the shore before he
knew. Yalton was not above a few miles from the sea, or rather from the
Firth in its upper part, not far from the spot where that monstrous
prodigy of science, about which so many trumpets have been blown, the
Forth Bridge, now strides hideous across the lovely inlet--those golden
gates through which the westering sun was wont to stream unbroken from
the upper reaches of the great estuary upon the stronger tides below.
Dalyell came out upon it suddenly, forgetting in the intense
preoccupation of his thoughts where he was. The sun had risen beyond the
distant Grampians, touching the Fife villages all along the coast with
gold. The air was damp, yet sweet with the saltness of the sea in it,
and the breath of distance and the sensation of the vast unknown to
which this great, splendid ocean pathway was one of the ways. When
Dalyell came out thus upon the shore he was the one speck of animated
being in the whole still world. He sat down to rest for a little upon a
rock. At three o’clock in the morning there is nothing stirring, not
even the cattle, though they were waking and thinking of an early
breakfast in the fields. He sat there and noted, and thought over it all
again. He was very forlorn, but not angry with anybody, scarcely vexed
by the thought that he was so soon forgotten. He even laughed a little
at the thought of Pat Wedderburn. How had he got himself the length of
that idea of marrying? He divined old Pat’s thoughts, a little troubled
by the necessity, going bravely through it. He had no sense of
resentment towards any of them. As soon as there was any one stirring
about the “Dun Cow” he would steal in and get his things and some
breakfast, and take himself off at once and for ever--never, whatever
happened, to interfere again.

But in the meantime there was some time to wait, and the sun was growing
warmer every moment, and the tide was in, and the little wavelets
rippling along the shore. Baths were not luxuries known at the “Dun
Cow,” and here was the bath he liked best, ready before him. It would be
the last time he would ever bathe in his native waters. He slipped out
of his clothes, laid them in a little heap, without even thinking how on
one supreme occasion he had done that before, and plunging from the
nearest rock launched himself into the sea and sunshine. It would brace
him up for the journeys and troubles of the day.

Dalyell swam about for some time, and dived and sported in the water
like a boy, with a curious sudden lightness of heart. He could not make
up his mind to come out of the water. And the northern seas are cold at
three o’clock (getting on for four) in the morning, with the sun not yet
very strong, and but newly risen. What it was that happened there was no
one to tell. Perhaps it was the shock of the night’s proceedings, though
he had reasoned it away, which struck to his heart--perhaps it was the
cold of the water--it might be a cramp, which, had there been any one
near to help, would have been of little consequence. None of these
things would any one ever know. It was said afterwards that a cry was
heard, piercing the sober stillness of the morning, so that somebody
woke and got up at the “Dun Cow,” but finding no sign of harm, went to
bed again for another hour. And it is certainly true that the minister
woke in his manse, which is near the shore, and got up and opened his
window, and remarked upon the beauty of the morning, and the wonderful
delightful calm and brightness of the Firth. He thought after that it
must have been the drowning man’s cry that woke him, though he was not
conscious of the sound itself.

Thus, with the strangest repetition, all the incidents of Dalyell’s
fictitious drowning were reproduced; and it did not fail to be remarked
in the papers that the accident up the Firth was singularly like the
accident that had happened nearly two years before to Mr. Dalyell, of
Yalton, on Portobello sands. It was a remarkable coincidence: but the
sufferer in this case, it was added, was a stranger, who had arrived at
the “Dun Cow” the night before, and was supposed to be a foreigner. The
body was found among the rocks, as if he had made a despairing grip upon
the seaweeds that covered them to save himself, from which it was judged
that the misadventure was wholly accidental; but, naturally, all was
conjecture, and this was a thing that never could be known.




CHAPTER IX.


Fred went to his mother’s room, about which an agitated crowd had
already gathered, the two girls and their maid, and an anxious domestic
or two from downstairs, besides Mrs. Dalyell’s own maid, who was with
her mistress. Foggo stood outside on the staircase, anxious to know if
he should go for the doctor, and still more anxious to know what had
happened, for there was already a conviction in the house that it was
not mere illness which had produced that shriek which startled
everybody. Mrs. Dalyell was not the kind of woman to shriek from
physical pain, and there had been a whisper in the house that the
horseman had been heard in the avenue, which, naturally, was a
preparation for trouble. Fred, however, was not admitted till some time
later, of which the poor young fellow was glad: for he was in no
condition to meet his mother in the nervous and excited state in which
she must be, while he himself was so shaken and miserable from the same
cause. He went to his own room and endeavoured there to calm himself,
and thrust away the appalling question that was now before him. How
lately he had said to himself that his father’s previsions had all been
mistaken, and instead of having to take upon himself the anxieties and
cares of the head of the house, to break off his studies and turn his
thoughts to the grave side of life, he had only been more free, more
independent, than before, since he had succeeded his father as Dalyell
of Yalton. Ah! but who could have thought of this, this further chapter
of disaster, unimaginable, incurable, which would involve the name of
Dalyell of Yalton in dishonour and shame--the name his ancestors had
borne in credit and pride, the name that poverty and ruin could not have
stained, but which must now perish amid records of deceit and fraud.
Fred’s very heart seemed to shrink and wither up within him when he
thought of what he had now to do. It would be his to put the stamp of
shame upon that name--to expose the whole disgraceful story, the
dishonest means by which downfall had been staved off, only to fall more
dreadfully upon the unhappy and innocent now. No, he must not palter
with right and wrong, he must not allow any sentiment of pity either
for the criminal or for himself to steal in. The criminal! Now that Fred
had time to think, that criminal--whose very name he could not endure to
think of--whom he had denounced and disowned with such force and almost
hatred--had looked at him, oh, with such fatherly eyes! He had scarcely
said anything, not a word in his own defence. Fred felt that if he had
stayed another minute his courage would have failed him, and the old
dear familiar image would have regained its power. The criminal!--worse
than a fraudulent bankrupt, almost worse than a suicide, and yet so
like--oh, so like----! Oh, he must not think, he must not allow himself
to fail in his duty. In a week’s time--that was what he had said--to
give full time for that fugitive to escape, that he might not be taken
or injured, or brought to justice. In a week’s time! There must be no
paltering with duty. It was clear before him what he had to do.

And then there began to pluck as it were at the skirts of Fred’s mind
thoughts of what this thing was, of what it must have cost. Had not the
man died, had he not more than died? It was not suicide, but it was
worse. He had given his life while still a living man. Strange words
crept into Fred’s mind, which did not come there of themselves, as if
some one had thrown them into the surging sea of passion and pain which
was within him. Greater love hath no man than this. Oh, silence,
silence! these words were said of another, a greater--one Divine.
Greater love hath no man than this: they came back and back: as if they
could be applied to a man who was a sinner, who had committed a fraud,
and deceived his fellow men! Had he deceived them? Had he not died? Died
more terribly, more completely than the man in the family grave in
Yalton churchyard, who was not Robert Dalyell. Which would one choose if
one had to choose? Surely the home in the churchyard, the tablet on the
wall--and not the life of an outcast, the death in life of a man who had
no identity, who had neither name nor fame. Fred’s young soul was rent
asunder by these thoughts. There had been no relenting in him, no pity.
But now outraged nature avenged herself. Oh, how cruel he had been, how
harsh!--not a word of kindness in him, not a softening touch. And he
ought not to think of nature now, he ought not to be moved by kindness.
He ought to subdue all relenting. In a week’s time! He must set his
face like brass. He must think of nothing that could make him fail.

It was late when Fred was called to his mother, and he went down as
timid as a child called to an interview of which it knows nothing, but
that it must involve terrific consequences. He had looked at himself
anxiously in the glass before he obeyed the summons, wishing that he
knew some way of making himself look less pale, his eyes less excited.
The girls knew ways of doing this, Fred believed, but he did not know.
He plunged his head into cold water to relieve the heaviness and heat he
felt, as of something bursting from his forehead; and then he went
downstairs, slowly labouring to collect his thoughts to think what he
should say. Mrs. Dalyell was in bed, her head with the background of the
red curtains looking at the first glance almost ghastly, her face very
pale, her eyes excited like his own. She grasped him by both hands and
made him sit down by her. The candles were still burning, but a faint
glimmer of blue showed between the curtains. She kept holding his hand,
but it was a minute or two before she spoke.

“Fred, do you know if I said anything? What did I say? What did they
tell you? Did they say that I----?” She gasped for breath, and could not
finish the sentence, but did so with her eyes and with the pressure of
her hand.

“I heard nothing, mother, but that you fainted.”

She pressed his hand tightly again and said, “I didn’t faint. I let them
think so--to conceal--Though I was scarcely conscious of what I was
doing, I felt it gleam through me that to let them think I was
unconscious was best. But I never was unconscious for a moment,
Fred--you understand what I am saying?--nor was I asleep, nor could I
have been dreaming. You hear what I am saying, Fred?”

“Yes, mother: but don’t, for heaven’s sake, excite yourself; it may make
you ill again.”

“What will make me ill? I want you to understand. I’ve not been ill,
only--that they might have no suspicion. Fred, above all things I want
you to understand that I am in my full senses, meaning every word I
say.”

“Yes, mother,” he said, pressing her hand.

She renewed her grip upon it, as if she were holding fast to something
lest she should be carried away. “Well!” she said, with a long-drawn
breath. Then looking him fall in the eyes as if to defy
misunderstanding: “Fred,” she said, “I have seen your father!”

“Mother!” he cried.

“Hush--this was what I was afraid of--that you would think me out of my
senses. Look at me. I am not calm, perhaps, but I am as steady as you
are.” (That was not saying much; but absorbed in her own extraordinary
sensations, Mrs. Dalyell fortunately did not notice Fred.) “I was not
thinking of him, nor even questioning as I sometimes do. I was more
quiet than usual: when, just there, where the curtain is, I saw your
father!”

“You must have been over-excited, mother, though you did not know it. My
coming home and the girls’ talk--and all of us making ourselves
disagreeable--without knowing it your mind must have----”

“My mind was quite calm. I made allowance for you children. I could have
sympathised with you. But don’t go away with any such idea. I saw your
father--as plain as I ever saw him in my life.”

What could Fred say? He patted her hand to soothe her, and shook his
head gently; he could not trust himself to speak.

“It all passed in a moment,” she went on. “He said something. I feel
sure he used the word marriage, but I was too much startled to make out,
and I was so foolish as to give that cry. I can’t tell you what a
dreadful feeling came upon me. I am not a woman to scream, but I could
not help it. And he disappeared, and they all came rushing in.”

“It must have been an optical illusion, mother--that’s what they call
those sort of things. You were disturbed by all of us, and your
imagination got excited.”

“Don’t speak such nonsense to me. I saw your father as I see you. Fred,
that’s not half I’ve got to tell you.” She closed her fingers more and
more closely upon his hand, and drew him close to her. “He was changed,”
she said almost in a whisper. “He was not as he used to be.” She put her
face nearer to her son’s. “An apparition would have been nothing in
comparison. It would have been not wonderful, considering everything.
But this: Fred”--she drew him quite close and her fingers were upon his
hand like iron--“Fred, your father had grown a beard!”

“Mother!” he cried again.

“You think I’m mad, and I don’t wonder: but there’s more in what I say
than you think, Fred: a man who was dead could not do that. Fred, find
me words. I don’t know what to say. There is more in this than we know.”

They looked at each other, the eyes of the one shooting light and
meaning into those of the other. How could the boy stand the keen
scrutiny of his mother’s eyes? He faltered before her and tried to avert
them, but failed. At last he faltered, “Mother! I think your guess is
right!”

She seized him by the shoulder with her other hand and shook him in the
vehemence of her passion. “Have you known this all along? Have you known
and never said a word?”

“No,” he said; “how could you think it? Could I have been a party to a
fraud? But I saw him too--to-night.”

Mrs. Dalyell’s hands relaxed; she fell back upon her pillow, and,
covering her face with her hands, began to cry and moan. “Oh, how shall
I ever look him in the face! How shall I ever look him in the face!”

Fred was prepared for many things on his mother’s part. He was prepared
to see her burst into indignation like his own; he could have understood
her stern and angry, or he could have understood her grieved and
miserable. He could even have understood it--had she been unreasonably
and foolishly glad. But ashamed, asking how she could look him in the
face!--this was beyond the knowledge of her son. After a little she
calmed down and said with the echo of a sob, “We will have something to
forgive each other--on both sides.”

“Mother,” cried Fred, “do you realise all the difference it will make?”

She was silent for a moment, with a flush upon her face. “Oh, my dear,”
she cried, with a look of awe, “how can we ever be sufficiently thankful
that we knew in time!”

This was all she could think of, it seemed; and poor young Fred had to
return to his own troubled thoughts by himself without help from his
mother. She entertained, it would seem, no doubt as to her duty towards
her husband. The fraud did not weigh on her mind. He had come back--that
was all.




CHAPTER X.


In the afternoon of the miserable day which had begun in this wise, Fred
was sitting alone, trying to come to some conclusion in the crowd of his
unhappy thoughts. His mother had been able to rest after her agitation,
and sleep, but had sent for him again early to ask for his father--where
he was in the meantime, and when he was coming home? It had better, she
thought, be got over as quietly as possible, and all the friends
informed. Mr. Wedderburn was always fond of Robert: he would take it
very quietly; he would see that the less said the better for all
parties. Her mind was full of these thoughts. She had arranged
everything in her mind. There would be much to forgive--on both
sides--which perhaps on the whole was better than had it been entirely
on one. As for business matters, Mrs. Dalyell was aware there must be
troubles; but fortunately this was not her share of the business. Robert
and Mr. Wedderburn would settle these things. It all seemed so simple
as she put it, that Fred withdrew again with a sort of artificial calm
in his spirit, but had no sooner been alone for ten minutes than the
hurlyburly began over again. What was he to do? Inform the insurance
companies? But what could be done to raise the necessary money? Throw
Yalton into the market--or what? Anyhow, it must be ruin, whether the
father came home or disappeared again; anyhow, his own happy career was
over, and nothing but trouble was to come.

In the meantime he did not know where his father was, or what had become
of him, and he had not yet the courage to question Janet, who no doubt
knew. Janet was at the bottom of it all. For all he could tell, it might
be she who had first suggested that dreadful expedient out of which all
this misery came. Oh! had the family been but ruined honestly,
naturally, two years ago! Fred felt, like a child, that it must be that
wretched old woman’s fault all through, and he could not subdue his mind
to the extent of asking her for information. It would come, he felt
sure, in good time.

And so it did: that afternoon Foggo entered the library where his young
master was sitting, with a very mysterious air, and informed him that
there was “one” who desired to speak with him. Fred’s heart leapt to his
mouth, for his thoughts were bent solely on his father, and it seemed
certain that it could be no other than he.

“A gentleman,” he added faintly, “with a beard?” It was the only
description he could venture upon.

“No, Mr. Fred, not a gentleman at all--John Saunderson from the ‘Dun
Cow.’”

“John Saunderson from the ‘Dun Cow’?”

“It was to speak about something that had happened. He said that if the
young laird would have the kindness to step out at the gate--he’s no
just in trim for a grand house, and he would like to speak to yourself
in a private way.”

“Bring him here, then, Foggo.”

“No, Mr. Fred: he would take it far kinder if you would just step out to
the gate.”

And this was what Fred finally did. He found the landlord of the “Dun
Cow” exceedingly embarrassed, not knowing how to begin his story. He
took off his blue bonnet at the sight of Fred, and began to twirl it
round and round in his hands.

“It’s about an accident that’s happened,” said John.

“Do you want me to do anything? I’m very much occupied; if it’s anything
Foggo could do----”

“Na, it’s not Foggo I want” (he said Foggy, after the fashion of his
locality), “it’s just yoursel’. There was a gentleman came to lodge in
my house last night. We whiles get a stranger--that’s not very
particular.”

“A gentleman?”

“A gentleman with a beard.” The man eyed Fred very closely, who did not
know what to reply.

“Yes,” he said, with a little catch of his breath, “and what then?”

“The gentleman must have gone down, so far as we can see, very early to
take a bath in the sea. Nobody heard him go out. My own idea is he never
was in after he got his supper. He first went to the door for a smoke,
and my impression is----”

“What happened?” said Fred. His mouth was so dry he could scarcely
speak.

“He must have gone into the sea to take a bath awfu’ early in the
morning, before we were up. The wife she thought she heard a cry about
four o’clock, and I got up, for she gave me no peace, and looked about
and saw nothing. But later there was one came running and said a man’s
clo’es were on the sands, close by some rocks--just for all the world as
they were that time, ye mind, Mr. D’yell, when your father was lost. I
just took to my heels and ran all the way to the sands. And there was
his clo’es, sure enough.”

“The man?” Fred gasped again.

“They got him after a bittie, with his hands clasped full of the
seaweed, and his knee raised up upon a rock. He must have made a fight,
poor gentleman, for his life. Na, I see what you are thinking: it was
nae suicide. He had got up his knee upon a bit of rock, and his hands
were full of the weeds--nasty slimy unprofitable things.” There was a
pause, and the man lowered his voice a little significantly before he
said, “I would like much, Mr. Frederick, if you would come down and see
him.”

Fred was not able to speak. He shrank more than he could say from this
dreadful sight. He shook his head in the impulse of his panic and
horror.

“Sir,” said the man, “I’ve known your father, Mr. Robert D’yell, Yalton,
man and boy, for more than forty year. If I didna know he had been
drowned two years ago I would say yon was him.”

It was with difficulty Fred found his voice: “I think that I know who it
was. It was a--near relation.”

“Ah, I can well believe that,” said John Saunderson. He was something of
a genealogist himself, as so many people of his class are in country
life, and he threw a hasty backward glance over the scions of the house
of Yalton, which he had known all his life, and settled within himself
that there was no such near relation, no cousin that ever he had heard
of. He did not say this, nor his own profound conviction as to the
drowned man.

“A man,” said Fred, “that we had thought to be dead--for years. He
frightened my mother with the likeness you speak of, and I am afraid he
did not get a good reception. Oh, Saunderson, you are sure it was not a
suicide?”

“So far as I could judge--no. I am not surprised,” said Saunderson,
“that the mistress was terrified. It gave me a kind of a shock. ‘Lord
bless me,’ I said, and then I just held my peace, for I would not be one
to raise a scandal on the house of Yalton. But my ostler, confound him,
has a long tongue.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” said Fred. “I’ll come down.”

And there he saw, on the poor bed in the “Dun Cow,” surrounded by the
few rustic houses about, all excited and discussing the tragedy, his
father, at last hushed and safe, seized by the death which he had
cheated once, but could not cheat a second time. The dreadful drowning
look had departed from his face; he lay tranquil and calm, like a man
who had died in his bed, who had never wronged either man or woman. Whom
had he wronged? Perhaps the insurance companies--no one else. And Fred
at length came to the conclusion that there was now no occasion to
disturb the insurance companies. It had come to pass at last--the event
which had been supposed to be accomplished long ago. There was no reason
now for the confession he had intended, no need to expose his father’s
deception, to betray the secret of the house. Fred could scarcely
reconcile himself to the fact that this was so. It cost him a great deal
of trouble to make up his mind that his business now--now that all was
over, and his father gone for ever--was to be silent for ever. Mr.
Wedderburn had been summoned, and this was his advice, as well as the
almost imperious command of Fred’s mother. To throw a stain upon her
husband’s name was intolerable to Mrs. Dalyell--to attract attention to
the house and explain its secret history. She said, with tears, yet with
indignation, that it should not, it must not be. And old Pat Wedderburn,
who was strangely moved by the story, and who said not a word in blame
of his friend, supported her strongly. “They would have had to give the
money now, if not then,” he said, “and it’s not your part to open the
question. Let it alone. Let him rest in his grave at last--poor Bob! And
I hope in my presence no one will ever say an ill word of Bob D’yell.”

There was a tear in the old lawyer’s eye. Perhaps he understood it best
of the three, though the other two were wife and son. Fred’s statement
that the drowned man was a relation made it possible to lay him in the
Yalton vault after all--his last and rightful home. Who the other was,
who had received that sad hospitality in the name of Robert Dalyell of
Yalton, they never knew, nor was it necessary to inquire.

Somehow, however, there was no more question of Mrs. Dalyell’s marriage.
Neither bride or bridegroom ever spoke of it again. And Mr. Wedderburn
resumed something of the old easy relations after a while, and presided
at Susie’s marriage, and was the best friend of the house, as he had
always been. It was a conclusion which on the whole they all felt to be
the best.


                               THE END.

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22. The Ways of Life. By Mrs. Oliphant.


                   G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, PUBLISHERS,

                         NEW YORK AND LONDON.







End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ways of Life, by Margaret Oliphant

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