Lieutenant-Colonel John Falconer broke the traditions of his family by entering the army, and his whole youth was expensive and disastrous. He was near being asked to leave his regiment; he was in trouble about the mess funds; he was deplorably in debt; when his aunt sent him a religious tract, it was returned with a pen and ink commentary in a blunt, military style. By these flashes and reverberations his stormy existence was from time to time revealed to his family at home; and as he never wrote between whiles, a letter from India denoted a new scrape.
Suddenly, at the age of thirty, he was converted at a revival meeting. From that moment he was a changed man. It was his principal boast that he had not once omitted or shortened his devotions since that day, and for those who knew his previous habits, the pretension was imposing in the extreme. At the same time that he became religious he developed a sense of duty, and turned into a good officer. Falconer was counted a trusty man; Napier swore by him; his men feared and admired him in equal parts.
When his father died, and he found himself the last of the family besides two nephews, he took it to be his duty to go home and supervise his nephews and the estate. An unpleasant duty was to him what stolen pleasures are to others: it was his passion; he flung himself into it headlong; and the more unpleasant it was, the higher his pride rose as he performed it. To live at Grangehead, to take care of an estate, to be pestered with a pair of playful urchins, to give up his regiment—this was the best thing of the sort he had yet encountered, the raciest piece of self-sacrifice conceivable, the very pink of martyrdom; and on his homeward voyage Colonel Falconer was a prey to all the delights of what we may call Black Happiness.
His old Aunt Rebecca (who had sent him the tract in former days) still survived in a cottage at Hampstead; she had received in the meantime the two nephews; and so the Colonel’s first visit was to her.
Aunt Rebecca was much moved when she saw the new arrival descend with a grave demeanour from a hansom cab. He was very tall, upright, and muscular, with a dash of the trooper—a sort of flavour of sword exercise about his carriage. His face was the colour of genuine Indian curry; his moustache heavy, and quite white; his eyebrows black, bushy, and singularly immobile. About his mouth there lurked a hard expression that was imposing, but a little doubtful; it smacked of the soldier. The Colonel was not a hypocrite, mind you.
Aunt Rebecca was all in a flutter, but he kissed her on the left eyebrow, asked after her in a harrowing voice, and generally put her at her ease again. He sat down, and they began talking of family bereavements.
“My father was not irreligious, of course,” said the Colonel, “but he scarcely seemed a man of vital piety.”
“He died with great joy,” said Miss Rebecca, answering the question which the other had been afraid to put.
“Thank God,” said the Colonel, with stentorian fervour. “I behaved ill to him, Aunt Rebecca. I was a very hardened young man.”
“Indeed, you were a very charming one, John, and always my favourite; so bright and kindly, and such a bonny boy. You are handsomer now, perhaps, but the fire has gone out of you.”
“I’m afraid it was wild-fire,” said the Colonel, gloomily. “Where are these children?”
Aunt Rebecca fetched them in, and explained them, like a demonstrator in a museum. “This is John, and this is Malcolm. John is the cleverer of the two; but Malcolm’s a clinging sort of child, with such a sweet temper”; and so forth, as only an old maid can.
“Which is the elder?” inquired the Colonel.
“John is three weeks older,” replied the old lady. “It’s not much.”
“And then he’s of the elder branch. That’s as it should be; he shall have Grangehead, Aunt Rebecca.”
“Oh, do you think that’s quite necessary?” she inquired, a little chopfallen, in the interest of the clinging child with the sweet temper. It was the first time she had crossed the Colonel’s path. I may add it was the last. He was not angry; he had no wish to terrify the harmless lady; but when the man’s spirit rose, as it always did at a thought of opposition, his voice rose along with it; and the mere volume of sound was appalling to the frail old dame.
“Primogeniture is the law of the land!” he bawled; “and”—he was going to have added it was the law of God, but thought better of this flight. “And a very good thing too,” he substituted. “However, I don’t bind myself; I shall test the children thoroughly.”
“I thought he was a soldier?” demanded John, in the tone of one who has paid for his seat and means to have his entertainment.
“So I am, little man,” said the Colonel.
“Where’s your sword, then?”
“There’s nobody here to fight with; nobody but kind aunties and good little boys. But you shall see my sword some of these days, and a case of pistols. Would you like to be a soldier?”
“That I would!” replied the child.
“So you shall, I hope,” answered the Colonel, with emotion; “one of Christ’s soldiers.”
It was plain he had taken a fancy to John.
The whole party moved to Grangehead. It was a rambling old house, most of it only one story high, and none of it higher than two; it seemed to have been built at odd times, and it was difficult to tell where the mansion stopped and the offices began. The grounds were overgrown with hollies and laurels. In summer many fungi prospered in the thicket, and breathed out faint odours upon passersby; but there were also many lilacs which beautified and perfumed the place in spring. A large paddock, almost large enough to justify the name of “park” by which it went, was the playground of the two boys; there was besides a belfry over the gate of the stableyard, a great range of roof to clamber on, a draw-well under an old yew in a dark part of the shrubbery, and many other romantic accidents such as youth delights in. A broken-spirited tutor disposed of their mornings.
The Colonel himself was in his element. He accepted office as elder in the parish church, where his grand manners imparted a flavour of ritual to the boldest ceremonies of Scotch Presbyterianism. He was hand and glove with the subjected clergyman, and his big voice ruled in the Kirk Session. Once in a while, of a Saturday or Sunday evening, he would give a little lecture in the school-room; when he would now besiege the obdurate with denunciations, now delight the simple with soldierly anecdotes and barrack sentiment. It was a mystery to all how Colonel Falconer managed to be so blunt, and plain, and guileless, and simple-hearted as he did on these occasions; for, personally, he was quite a man of the world. He would even throw in a broad Scotch accent on an occasion. It was at these moments that cynical friends discussed the expression of his mouth. But the commonalty were vastly pleased. This man, who had imbued himself all over in the blood of persons of colour, and made a reputation in the army, proved, when put to the touch before a critical audience in the school-room of Grangehead, no great theologian after all, but a plain Christian who was most fitted to touch the hearts of children. That was somehow agreeable to all the hinds. It was concluded that the Colonel was a manly Christian; that was his variety in the local classification.
Poor old Miss Rebecca had been ordered up to Grangehead to help with the children. She soon withered; the Colonel rode her down, horse and van, so to speak. His iron nerves, his cruelly resounding voice, his abrupt decisions, the company and regimental devotions in which she had to take part under his eye—all these things preyed upon her like a disease. Colonel Falconer was her ideal; she had no fault to find with him. But she pined in his neighbourhood—a malady incident to maids—and passed away.
The Colonel was inconsolable; and thenceforward he was a little harsher to the boys. He had always been harsh, without ever being unkind, if you can understand that. The boys were not afraid of him in any deep sense, even loved him after a fashion; but they were shudderingly averse to his society. He was rude to them on principle; he made their lives as dull and bitter as he could, because he thought that was best for them, and he imagined he had so disenchanted existence, that there were no pleasures within their reach, except the pleasures of religion. He reckoned without boyhood, without the paddock, without the roof, without the draw-well in the shrubbery, without the fungi all summer under the laurels, without the sun, and winds, and seasons. The Colonel did his best; but it is easier to command any conceivable number of sepoys than to take the interest and poetry out of young people’s lives.
John was a boy with what is called a deep nature—that is to say, he began to mature very early; wrote hymns and other performances, which he hid away in a confusion if anyone approached; was addicted to long meditation, and showed at times a morose and flighty character. Altogether, a boy to be looked after, with plenty of predisposition to evil, and all the passions impending. Malcolm was easy-going, and a little shallow; he had petty selfishnesses, for which John made way with rather a grand air; but then he could put his pride in his pocket to appease others, and had a winning way.
There never was any doubt but John should inherit. He was a boy after the Colonel’s heart—proud, brave, gloomy, and with a natural talent for religion. Accordingly, he was affianced to Miss Mary Rolland, a girl of his own age, and heiress of the next estate. Mary and John understood their position; and they were always great friends. As soon as John was of age, they were to be married.
John was eighteen on the 12th of May, 18—. It was adorable weather. All the lilacs were in flower and all the birds were in love about the gardens of Grangehead; the wind smelt of spring. Mary Rolland and her father had dined with the Falconers, and the whole party strolled into the garden; for there was no loitering over wine at the Colonel’s table.
“No, sir, I will not let that pass,” roared the host. “It is a matter of principle; I will not bate an ace on it.”
“My dear sir,” replied Mr. Rolland, “my very dear sir, pardon me for saying so, but, indeed, you take this rather warmly. I believe I may say I am a man of principle myself. I have never paltered or temporised; but I must make distinctions.”
“I make no distinctions,” answered the Colonel, “in matters of principle. Is it a matter of principle, yes or no?”
“Christian liberty,” began Mr. Rolland.
“Don’t let me hear the phrase,” interrupted the Colonel.
“I believe it is unimpeachably orthodox,” replied the other, somewhat nettled. “I believe I could name authorities. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, it occurs in the Bible. Malcolm, will you fetch a testament?”
“It has been abused, Mr. Rolland. People have wrested it to their own damnation. Humble Christians should reverence it as a mystery; not bandy it about in disputations.” There was a flush under the curry-coloured cheek; the Colonel was on his war charger for the evening.
“Come away, Mary,” whispered John, pettishly. “There’ll be no end to this sort of thing.”
They went up a path among the evergreens, somewhat dark already, but closed at the far end by a piece of golden sky. The cover was musical on either side. Mary walked slowly, looking on the ground; John, who kept half a step in advance, could not keep his eyes from her. She seemed to have changed; there was more meaning, more life, more blood about her; from a pale, wiry slip of a girl, she had blossomed and spread, and become soft and rich, and foreign-looking. John was confused.
At the end of the path there was an open space with a seat, and a low parapet wall overlooking a public highway, and a great prospect of wood and meadow, bounded to the north by a range of hills. A river glittered along the plain in broken segments. The outline of the hills was bitten into the luminous sky. Clouds of birds passed to and fro between the clumps of plantation.
“Have you written any more poetry?” asked John.
“No.” She spoke in a constrained voice; it was a lie, and she lied clumsily, being still very young.
“You promised you would write something for my birthday.”
“I found I couldn’t,” she said.
There was a pause. “I am so glad we are going to be married,” he said, blankly. It elicited no answer, and she did not take her eyes off the distant view. John sighed. “I am so fond of—of looking at sunsets,” he said. The speech came in two in the middle, and the end was patently not the proper sequel of the beginning.
“So am I,” she answered, with a sort of fervour.
“I wonder what has come over us. One would think we weren’t happy,” he remarked.
“Oh! but I am happy.”
“So am I,” he said, in his turn, “very happy—very happy”; and he repeated the words vacantly several times. They had never been sparing of caresses to each other, since their nurses had taught them to kiss; and so he was confounded when, on trying to take her hand, he found it withdrawn from him nervously. He waited abashed for some moments, and then he made a sort of effort, for he was frightened at the restraint and the disorder of his own feelings, and wished to do something which should break the spell and bring them back to natural terms of intercourse. He tried to kiss her. She sprang back in a commotion, turned white and red, and then white again, and stood a little way off, silent and seemingly indignant.
“She must hate me,” thought John. He was no great doctor in the schools of love; he was better up in the catechism, poor lad.
It was a relief to both when they heard Mr. Rolland calling for Mary, and they returned in silence to the lawn.
He walked so far home with them, on her father’s invitation; and the old gentleman spoke with him very kindly by the way. Mary was quite silent; but her colour was a little heightened, and her eyes, which seemed no longer to avoid his gaze, looked very bright and soft.
Tall gates of iron, and an approach of lilacs, gave admission to Grangehead. The approach was buried in transparent shadow. A single blackbird fluted vaingloriously among the lilacs, a sweet smell of evening was abroad upon the air, the view was bounded by the sharp outline of the laurel thickets, and the gables of the house imprinted on the luminous west. Malcolm, with his head bent forward and his hands clasped behind his back, was pacing the gravel with slow, uneven footsteps. He affected not to hear John’s approach, for he did not turn. But John overtook him, and in schoolboy fashion threw his arm about his neck. Malcolm shook him off.
“Leave me alone,” he said, testily.
“Why, what’s wrong with you, Malcolm?” said John.
“I want to be alone.”
“Oh, by all means!” said John, and he passed him several steps in a fling of ruffled vanity. But he came to his better self in a moment. Malcolm was certainly moved beyond his custom, and it was not an occasion to be nice on points of etiquette, so John came back. “Tell me what’s wrong with you, Malcolm?” he repeated, “there’s a good lad! Tell me what’s wrong?”
“I never said anything to you, did I?” returned the other in a flash. “I can die, but I won’t whine. You’ve got everything else—you’ve got the estate, and Mary, and everything—you may leave me my own company.”
John was dumbfounded.
“Malcolm, Malcolm,” he cried, “you know very well that what’s mine is yours. You know very well we’re to share and share alike. Do you think I could be happy and leave you out? You know me better than that.”
“It’s not the estate,” said Malcolm with a sob. “It’s the girl, man—it’s the girl!” and he covered his face passionately with his hands.
John became grave. “Do you love her?” he asked.
“Do I not!” replied the other, throwing up his arms with a wild gesture. “Love her? Do I not!” He was very young.
A number of ugly thoughts presented themselves simultaneously at the door of John’s mind. He suffered a furious spasm of the under lip. “Does she love you?” he demanded.
“Do you think she loves you?” returned his cousin, with something like a sneer.
It was a Scotch answer, as people say in the North; but it sent John into the depths of despair. Everything was plain enough now; Mary hated him, as he had imagined. She loved Malcolm. They loved each other. In all likelihood there was an understanding between them. He was no more than an absurd and hateful obstacle in the lives of the two persons who were dearest to him.
Malcolm had made the answer in a tiff, and because he could say nothing more to the purpose. He had no reason to suppose Mary loved him. She seemed fond enough of his society, indeed; but then they usually conversed of John. He began to repent. “It’s not the estate,” he repeated, with a whimper; “it’s only Mary I mind; I can’t live without her. But I can die,” he added, cheerfully.
“The two go together, my boy,” replied John. “You must have both or neither—both or neither.” He shook his head mechanically for a long time. He was maturing a great scheme of self-sacrifice with hereditary gusto. The blood of wrong-headed old Covenanters, the blood of the Colonel was working darkly in his heart.
Suddenly a bell interrupted the stillness with a precipitate, undignified clangour. The blackbird flew away. It was the signal for family worship. John took Malcolm’s hand solemnly.
“Malcolm,” he said, “we are nearer than most brothers. I’ll do all I can for you.”
Family worship at Grangehead was an affair of great precision. All the servants were expected to attend, morning and evening. The Colonel read aloud a chapter from the Old Testament and one from the New, and delivered a long prayer extempore. His voice was loud and hurried, as if he was calling a roll before proceeding to business; and of course the servants never listened. When the prayer was over, breakfast began in the morning; and at night everyone was expected to retire. On the evening of his birthday John requested a private interview with his uncle.
The Colonel looked at him sharply, and then bade him follow him to the study, where he took a chair himself, and motioned his nephew to another. But John preferred to stand.
“Well, what is it?”
“I understand, Sir,” began John, “that I am to succeed you in the property; and I wished—”
“I don’t choose to discuss these matters,” said the Colonel; “above all, with you. In the meantime you are one of my nephews, and no more. Is that all?”
“Indeed, Sir, you do not understand me. You must allow me to explain. It is a matter of conscience.”
“Oh, if it’s a matter of conscience!” said the Colonel; and he made an urbane movement with his hand.
“Malcolm is in love with Mary, Sir,” said John.
“Well?” bawled the Colonel.
“He cannot marry her unless he is to have the property,” continued John; “and for my part I would rather not have it. I would far sooner make a way in the world for myself. I wish to be independent, and owe everything to my own spirit; and there is no fear of me. I could be a clergyman and save souls, or a soldier like you, or go to a colony; there is no fear of that. And think, Sir, what it would be for poor Malcolm to lose all he cares about in the world; and for me, if I had taken it all away from him!”
“I thought you liked the girl yourself,” said the Colonel.
“I do.” John’s mouth was very dry.
The Colonel jumped up and shook John by the hand.
“You’re a fine fellow, Sir,” he cried. “I honour you for every word you’ve said. You’re a nephew after my own heart, and I believe after God’s. But as to what you say, of course it’s nonsense. I leave the property to please myself and for God’s glory, and for neither your pleasure nor Malcolm’s; and you must take it, as I took it, as a talent. Yes, lad,” he added, “that’s the word that will make it all come easily to you. A talent—perhaps a cross. Bear it for His sake.” And he brought his hand down upon John’s shoulder with kindly violence.
“But Malcolm,” began John.
“Go to bed,” cried the Colonel. “I forgive you, but I’ll hear no more of it. And mind you pray against spiritual pride. I know you; you’re a fine lad; but there lies your stumbling-block. You wish to play the martyr.” People will spy their own foibles through chain-mail.
Of course John was bitterly indignant. All this praise rankled in his conscience, and made him suspicious of his own sincerity. If it were only to reinstate his self-respect, he must consummate the sacrifice. Moreover, the Colonel’s last insinuation was too near the truth not to be galling. But he dared not struggle further, and said “Good night,” leaving the Colonel to thank God upon his knees for his nephew’s excellence.
In his own room he threw the window open, and sat down to nurse his desperate determination. The flush had died out of the west; the night was full of stars; troops of dark trees huddled together in the twilight and rocked in faint airs. From the stable court he could hear the watch-dog jangle his chain, or a wakeful horse moving in the stall. He contemplated the stars with imbecility. Sometimes he walked about the room; sometimes he sat down again and began eloquent letters; often he fell bitterly to prayer. The whole subject had gone beyond his control into the region of the imagination, where it worked and fermented, and cast up a fine froth of mock heroics. He would make everybody else happy, and be himself supremely miserable. They should wallow in luxuries; he would live on dry bread in a garret. If he made enough for superfluity, it should be forwarded secretly to add some infinitesimal detail to their felicity. Sometimes a pale face would be seen in the shrubbery; the children would flee from it with screams, while the unknown benefactor made his escape unnoticed. At last he would die on a pallet; everybody would troop around him with tears and apologies, and his grave would be daily visited by those whom he had served.
This sort of fanfaronade was often interrupted by transports of genuine feeling. The boy’s love for Mary had roots in his soul, and at times he was beside himself at the thought of losing her.
About three in the morning, as he was leaning out of the window, a train passed many miles off under the range of hills. Just before the sound of its passage died out of earshot, the long shrill scream of the whistle ascended towards the stars. I wonder whether people who were young in the days of stage-coaches and guards’-horns, know what a trouble is brought into the minds of wakeful youth by the sound of a railway whistle. A lad is shown all the kingdoms of the earth in a vision; and, although he is eminently happy where he is, with loving friends and a half-written poem in his desk, he positively despises himself because he is not going somewhere else. You may imagine what it was to John. Thank God! he had the world before him; he would begin anew, and carve out something noble for a career.
He dozed a little in a chair, and was wakened by horrible dreams. His ears were filled with Babel; he was thrust hither and thither in a crowd of vile spectres, and heard the Colonel calling upon him from an incalculable distance. When he awoke, the light of the candle dazzled and distressed him, and he was afraid of the shadows.
Some time before sunrise he suddenly burst out bleeding at the nose, and had hard ado to get it staunched. He soaked his clothes by holding a wet sponge to the nape of his neck, and the coolness gratified so much that he took a bath. This seemed to clear his head and steady his nerves; the more acute symptoms of fever passed away; and he slipped out into the garden in the dawn, with something like composure in his heart.
He walked for a while in the approach, and made some very impassioned verses to Mary, to Malcolm, to his own heart, to God for strength, to the sunrise; all of which he forgot as soon as he had made them, although that was no great matter. He went and sat on the parapet where he had been last night with Mary. The stones were wet with dew; mists were scattered on the plain; there was a great lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep; women with pails and whistling plough-lads began to go by underneath him on the public road. Here he prayed very heartily, wept a good deal, and, for two moments, was near giving up his intention. But the bell for prayers cut in upon this mood, played havoc with his disordered nerves, and called back the dark perversity upon his soul. The harm that is done by ugly bells ill-rung is not to be computed.
At breakfast John ate nothing, and drank a great deal of strong tea, which was very bad for him. There never was much talk at this meal, except on Sundays; during the week the Colonel had the papers to read, and a considerable correspondence besides, and the cousins usually brought a book to table. But on this particular morning the Colonel went twice out of his way to address an agreeable remark to John, and looked at him covertly from time to time with much affection; for he had been thinking his nephew over, and was vastly pleased with him. John answered roughly and sourly. The idea of speaking pleasantly over a breakfast-table to a hero and a martyr!
The cover was removed, and John was pretending to read the newspaper over the fire, when his uncle returned with a letter in his hand. He had a very kind look in his eyes as he spoke.
“Take this letter to Hutton, please” (Hutton was Mr. Rolland’s place), “and wait an answer.”
It was now the moment for action. John drew himself together with a great effort; he did not raise his head from the paper.
“Thank you,” he answered, quietly, “I prefer staying where I am.”
If a thunderbolt had fallen upon Grangehead, it would have discomposed the Colonel less. John could see him over the edge of the paper. He stood quite still, but the immovable eyebrows went up, and his whole face underwent a swift and rather ghastly change. He seemed about to speak, but he thought better of it, went to the window, and looked out for perhaps a minute and a half. Then he turned to John and addressed him once more.
“I am not sure whether you heard me. I desired you to take this letter to Hutton. I am not in the habit of repeating my commands.” Thus far he spoke firmly, and in his usual loud voice; but there he seemed to take fright, and added hurriedly, and in an unsteady tone, “You can take a horse, if you like, John.”
Even John, full as he was of heroic and satanic humours, was shocked at his uncle’s condescension; his heart yearned to him, and he longed to throw himself on his knees and avow all. It is so hard to insult a person you have respected all your life! But the devil was uppermost.
“I think I said I should prefer to remain where I am,” he answered.
“Oh, very well,” said the Colonel; and he left the room.
John had expected a blow. He was frightened and elated at the turn affairs had taken, and prayed fervently.
In the meantime Malcolm had repented of last night’s scene, in which he felt he had played a childish and perhaps a questionably honest part; and he desired heartily to make it up to John in kindness. He came into the dining room with a penitent but cheerful spirit, and took a seat on the opposite side of the hearth.
“About Mary—,” he began.
“Hold your tongue!” returned John. It was a discharge of nervous force, purely involuntary, and directed at no one in particular. The moment it had taken place he felt relieved, and sought to remove the effect. “I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you were saying; I’m a little out of sorts this morning,” he explained.
Malcolm stared.
“It was only about Mary and what we said last night,” he continued.
“I shall see that you are happy,” replied the other, grandly. “Make yourself easy. You have appealed to me, and it is now my business.”
“You needn’t take it quite so high,” said Malcolm. “I’m very much obliged to you, of course; but it’s my business too, and I mean to explain—”
“I’m not in the humour for explanations,” interrupted John.
“I’ll say my say if I choose.”
“You’ll say it to yourself then.” And John rose.
“John,” said Malcolm, “I beg your pardon if I spoke rudely. Indeed, I didn’t mean. And I really do wish a word with you.”
“You may leave me my own company,” answered John, mimicking his cousin’s voice.
“Oh, well, you may go and be blanked, for me!” flashed Malcolm. “You’re a blanked civil fellow, indeed! I wish you were dead!”
“I wouldn’t swear if I were you, young man,” observed John.
Malcolm flung out of the room in a fine temper, and John heard him slamming doors all about the house, until a stentorian summons and a rumble of reprimand from the Colonel’s study re-established peace. John felt very strangely. Thank God, he had quarrelled with everybody now! He was on the high seas of martyrdom. Malcolm was to be happy, thanks to him; and no one would suspect his heroism. I think he positively hated Malcolm; he would almost as soon have sought him out and strangled him, as gone on with the sacrifice that was to make him happy. His brain was in a whirl. He took a road on chance, and walked furiously. The trees danced on either side; the world reeled. Sometimes he was so dazzled he could see nothing; again, a corner of the road stood out before him in a sort of sickly distinctness; it seemed to mean something; it had something to do with his trouble, and he stared at it and hated it. The poor lad was in a fever.
In the course of this aimless walk he hit upon the county town, and, being consumed with thirst, he entered the hotel. The commercial room was occupied by a single personage—a pallid, red-haired, fat young bagman, seated by the fire, with a long tumbler of some beverage at his elbow. John sat as far away from him as he could, picked up a railway time-table, and turned over the pages without seeing a word. When the waiter came for his order, he pointed silently to the bagman’s glass.
“Same as that gentleman, Sir? Yes, Sir,” said the waiter.
Now it happened for John’s sins that the drink he had thus innocently commanded is one of the most insinuating mixtures in the world. Gin and gingerbeer, neither of them remarkable by themselves, become when mixed not only very agreeable, but exceptionally intoxicating. John was mightily pleased; his throat tingled, his brain cleared; the names of stations in the time-table became suddenly legible, and he gave himself over to a confused sort of luxury, picturing what sort of places these should be, and how the penniless martyr, John Falconer, should visit them one after another, and meet with singular adventures by the way. I think, as he got on with the second glass, there were even beautiful faces taking part in these adventures. For not only his love for Malcolm, but his love for Mary also, had suffered from the rivalry of Black Happiness and the violent dislocation of his hopes and prospects.
He did not reach Grangehead until the bell was ringing for dinner. He was aware of a distressing heat in his face, a noise in his ears, and a blur before his eyes. He had eaten nothing all day, had drunk more than was good for him, and still suffered from an unquenchable thirst. He took his place at table, dusty and disordered as he was; and his first action was to fill his glass with sherry and drink it off. The taste offended him, and he felt his head ache dully as he swallowed it; but he was too inexperienced to understand that he was getting drunk; he only knew that he was very ill, which was quite as it ought to be, and would bring on the reconciliation scene beside the pallet all the sooner.
The Colonel never addressed him. Malcolm, who felt that John was in disgrace, but attributed it merely to his unparalleled conduct in not coming home to luncheon, was also a little shy of speaking to him. As for their tiff in the morning, Malcolm had long ago forgiven that.
Towards the end of dinner the sherry began to operate, and John took the lead in the conversation.
“This is a hateful place—Grangehead,” he volunteered, cheerfully.
The Colonel looked at him sharply.
“There’s no life,” he continued; “no v’riety. Young men should see th’ world.”
Malcolm was alarmed, and telegraphed to him to be silent; but he could not understand the hint, or, if he did, resented it. The Colonel listened with growing attention: the wind was rising in that quarter.
“It’s not good, whatever you may think,” John proceeded, “for young men of tal’nt to be shut up with ‘n old man, whoever he is.”
He poured sherry into his tumbler and drank it off. He then looked at the empty tumbler with a maudlin laugh.
“ ’T occurs to me,” he began, “—’t occurs to me—.” And he stopped and smiled.
“It occurs to me, Sir,” bawled the Colonel, “that you’re the worse of drink.”
John contemplated his uncle in a vacillating way.
“Tha’ ’s a lie,” he remarked; and then, repeating it with a giggle, as if he had said rather a good thing, “Tha’ ’s a lie,” said he, “tha’ ’s a lie.”
Malcolm and the Colonel rose at the same moment, the former with some idea of interference. The Colonel whipped John out of his chair, and swept him irresistibly to the front door. Three stone steps, with a bit of iron railing on either hand, joined the level of the gravel plot to the level of the entrance hall. Standing on the top of these, the Colonel gave his nephew so smart an impulsion that he descended the stairs at one step, alighted on his left foot, fell thence on his right knee, and finally sprawled at full length upon the gravel.
“Let me see no more of you,” shouted the Colonel. “I bar my door against you for ever. I am done with you for time and eternity. God forgive you as I do”; and all unconscious of the irony of his last prayer, he re-entered the house, and shut the door.
John lay as he had fallen in a stupor. Meantime, the sun began to turn the west into a lake of gold, and the blackbird sang among the lilacs as before.
Malcolm was left alone in the dining room in a pitiful situation. He could understand from such sounds as reached him that John had been turned bodily out of doors, and that the Colonel had retired to brood in his private room. Grangehead and Mary were both his own, and yet I assure you he gave neither of them one thought. His mind was full of his cousin, and what could be done to bring about a reconciliation. He finished his wine mechanically. An hour went over his head, and he was still drawing patterns on the plate before him, when an alarmed servant peeped in, and asked if she might take away the things. This shook him into a resolution, and he went straight to his uncle. You must remember that Malcolm had never been the favourite nephew, and even when all went well, would have thought twice before he ventured on a similar intrusion.
The Colonel had neglected to turn up his reading-lamp on entering, so that the room was in twilight and filled with large shadows. He sat at the table, with his head on his hand and his face wholly shaded; even when Malcolm entered and addressed him, he gave no sign of life.
“Sir,” said Malcolm, “I trust there is nothing serious between you and John.”
“My dear boy,” returned the Colonel, with his hand still over his brow, “I have been expecting you; you may spare me the rest of your expostulations, which I can very well imagine for myself. You have mentioned the name of a person whom I once loved, but between him and me, there is an end of everything. I am a sinful man, perhaps a hard one; at least I did my best to be kind to him. But now he has provoked me beyond the power of God to make me forgive him, and I blot him out of my memory for ever. You see how it is,” he resumed, after a moment’s pause. “Out of consideration for yourself and out of respect for me, you will have to avoid this subject in the future. And remember, you must try and humour me now, for you are all I have left.”
He motioned him away, and Malcolm durst not hesitate. As he closed the door he thought he overheard the sound of a groan; and this impressed and terrified him more than ever. He sat on the stairs with his head in his hands, and tried to think. But he could make nothing of it; the pillars of the earth were moved, natural laws were all suspended. The human mind cannot change its base of operations fast enough for certain sweeping catastrophes.
He rose at last and cautiously opened the front door. It was getting very dark; but he could see something darker on the gravel. It lay so still that his heart began to misgive him dreadfully, and he stole down the steps and nearer to the body. He could hear stertorous breathing, now and then rising into a snore, and breaking off again; and as his alarm was quieted, its place was taken by contempt and some disgust.
As he returned to the house, Grangehead and Mary had become at least agreeable features in the background. He was getting reconciled to the new order of things, and sought rather to improve than to alter it. Out of his own savings and those of John (for they kept their money together) he made a purse of about thirty pounds. This he put into one pocket of a large, warm driving-coat, balancing it in the other with John’s Bible. And thus equipped he returned to the figure on the gravel.
“John!” he said; “John!”
John answered with a snort. Every fibre of Malcolm’s Puritanical body shuddered in revolt; and throwing the coat over his cousin, he fled back into the house.
There never was a night like that at Grangehead. There was no tea and no family worship. Mr. John slept on the gravel; Mr. Malcolm slept by the dining room fire; and the Colonel sat up in his own room in meditation and religious exercise.
The Colonel hung his head from that day forward. He turned suddenly and surprisingly bald; his face seemed to have shrunken and fallen in; and there were broken tones in his voice. Malcolm never uttered John’s name in his uncle’s presence; but he thought of him often enough as he looked upon these changes. The old man had been stabbed to the heart—slower or faster, he was dying.
There could be no doubt that he kept himself acquainted with John’s life, and would have grasped at any excuse to make up the difference and get his favourite nephew home again. But John’s conduct was of a nature to pain the Colonel deeply; every bulletin must have been another cowardly blow on his white head; and though he assisted his nephew underhand, neither his pride nor his principle would allow him to kill the fatted calf for such an unregenerate prodigal.
The end came, when the two lads were in their twenty-first year—John writing leader notes in a London newspaper, and Malcolm agreeably conscious of his approaching marriage with Mary Rolland. The Colonel took to bed rather suddenly. It was wild, windy weather, and the sky was full of flying vapours. He had been looking out of the window all the afternoon, and towards dusk he called Malcolm and pointed to the labouring trees and the dead leaves whirling in the open.
“I’m too old and tired for this sort of thing,” he said; “I think I’ll go to bed.” He looked at Malcolm queerly. “I don’t mean to get up again,” he added; and he kept his word. All the time of his illness he complained grievously of the sound of the wind; for the weather continued broken, and he would speak much of the perils of sailors, and be overheard praying for lawful travellers by sea and land.
At last one afternoon he bade Malcolm light the candles, prop him up with pillows, and bring him his despatch-box.
“I put it off, and put it off, God help me!” he said; “and I’m just afraid I put it off too long.”
Malcolm set the box on his lap.
“Here is the key, Sir,” he said.
“It’s the last time I shall use it,” said the Colonel, holding up the key with a smile. “It’s strange, strange to think of.” A horrible gust howled in the chimney, and the house quaked. “I wish I could be spared this wind; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine! I’m as full of fancies as a girl,” he added, opening the box. “It’s a poor account of an old soldier, Malcolm; but we all show the white feather towards the end; the lamp burns low, you see, and the blood runs cold. I’ve been in sharp affairs in my day, both on sea and land, and many a time I thought I had come to my last hour; but I never knew our need of a Divine Helper until now. I don’t mind a stand-up fight; but this lying here in the dark brings a man to his marrow-bones.” He had been turning over the papers during these last words, and now produced a sealed envelope. “Aye, here it is,” he went on. “And now, Malcolm, mark what I say. I don’t wish to open up old sores. I once thought of telling you the story; but it would do no good, and things are best as they are. So I take this way. What is in this envelope refers to—to one whom I have not mentioned for some years. I wish you to know that I loved that person as if he had been my own son, born out of my loins. Yet I was hard on him—very hard, and I pray God’s forgiveness.”
Malcolm’s face was streaming with tears. All the time he had known the Colonel stern and gloomy, merely set off his present mood, and rendered it more touching. The bystander, besides confessing present sympathy, accused himself of injustice in the past.
“No, uncle,” he cried, “you never were hard; you were only too good.”
“Hush!” said the old man. “This is no time for flattery. I am going where I shall hear the truth plump and plain. I was a hard, proud man; I was hard on my father, I was hard on you, and I was very hard on him. If ever a man needed the merits of Another, here he lies, Malcolm—here he lies. And now, when you see John, you’re to tell him that I forgave him, and asked his forgiveness. Don’t forget the last. And if ever you should be tempted to quarrel with him, or if ever you have it in your power to do him a service and hesitate to do it, or if ever he does you an injury that you can’t forgive, open this envelope, read the letter twice over—twice, mark you—and then down on your knees before your Maker for His guiding Spirit. And remember this, I’ve tried being a hard man, and you see the kind of death-bed it has brought me to; be you easy, Malcolm—mind and be you easy!”
He stopped exhausted, for he had been speaking with some vehemence.
“But how should I quarrel with John?” asked Malcolm; “or why should he do me an injury?”
“I don’t very well know; but circumstances are a great thing,” answered the Colonel, philosophically.
“Uncle,” objected Malcolm, “you are putting a secret into my life. Let me open the envelope at once, or as soon as—I mean—”
“As soon as I am dead!” the Colonel continued for him. “I have told you already when you may open it, and I don’t go back from my word. These are my orders, Sir. I always was a peremptory man; of course I know little or nothing about a future state, and speak under correction; but I rather suspect I shall be a very peremptory spirit.” This with a grim smile. “Now you understand. Take away the box, and leave me alone for awhile, like a good fellow.”
In the course of the week the old man’s mind began to wander. He commanded Sepoy regiments with great pluck, and addressed meetings in the school-room on religious topics. He talked much about John; and sometimes returned on the escapades of his own wild youth in a manner that profoundly afflicted and humiliated Malcolm as he watched alone by the bed. Towards the end he was clearer and very composed, said good-bye to everyone about the house, warning them against hardness and pride; and finally surrendered his sword between six and seven o’clock of a black, tempestuous evening, amidst the genuine grief of many who had only feared him while alive.
Malcolm stood over the fire that same night with the sealed envelope in his hand; now he was in a mind to burn it, and be done with all uncertainty; now he had his finger under the flap to tear it open. But it was an act of disloyalty to the dead, from which his sense of honour recoiled. Nor was this sentiment unhelped by circumstances. The candles winked and flickered in the draughts, and peopled the room with moving shadows, which seemed to spy upon him from behind; and the noise of the winds raving round the house in the darkness, chilled his blood and inclined him to superstitious terrors. He did not really imagine that the spirit of the dead Colonel on his Indian war-horse came charging up the approach with every gust; but somehow it struck him as not being a nice sort of evening for the business. And so he put the envelope into a casket by itself, locked it, and, venturing forth in all this uproar of the elements, threw the key into the draw-well in the shrubbery.
He felt relieved that very moment. The truth is, he had a shrewd guess of what the secret was, and dreaded nervously to learn that he was right. For some days longer the uncertainty haunted him; but by the end of a month he had practically lived it down, and before he had made all ready for the reception of his wife, the idea only recurred to him as a passing curiosity when he had nothing else to think about.
At first John had to swim very hard for existence; indeed, I scarcely understand how he kept his head above water at all. But he made friends, and the friends got him on to a newspaper in some subaltern capacity. When that newspaper failed, he found another more readily; and thus, like a man walking on a hill-side where every foothold breaks away as he quits it, he went on from journal to journal, as one after another silently expired. I don’t think he ever was connected with one that kept alive above a year.
He had written a large volume of poetry about himself and Mary Rolland and Malcolm, in delicately veiled allusion. I am told it scanned very well, and contained quite a surprising number of invocations to the Deity, and, comparatively speaking, no punctuation. And yet somehow it went against the heart of the publishing interest, and remained in manuscript. John took to being rather cynical and worldly, sneered at poetry, and daresay’d, over public-house tables, that he would turn his attention to politics one of these days, and change the face of Europe.
He lived from hand to mouth; and the hand was not always spotless, which fostered his cynicism. To a man in an abject situation, a good twanging snarl is a sort of moral pinch of snuff, and pulls his nerves together. From quite an early period he looked back with some contempt upon the episode of his departure. The hollow parts of it, the swollen vanity, were apparent at a glance; and he used to laugh at himself, not quite heartily perhaps, when he fell thinking of old days. I don’t think the laugh was quite genuine, because he very often had a glass of something after one of these attacks of solitary merriment. But then, of course, wine and laughter go together by rights.
He heard with sincere affliction of his uncle’s death. A little while after, and the news of Malcolm’s marriage followed. He was in great form that evening, and made some capital hits—above all, when he “stood” the company all round, and in a little humorous speech explained this unusual prodigality. His aunt had died, and in spite of the machinations of his wicked cousin, he was about to lead to the altar a young lady of remarkable attractions and great wealth. He made everybody die with laughing as he described this heroine, and expatiated on his own transports; and when it was done he laughed a very great deal over it himself, although he had preserved his gravity inimitably throughout. So you see John was quite a gay young fellow when he was twenty-one.
When he was well on in his thirties, another newspaper foundered under his feet. He was a confirmed prodigal, and when the pay stopped had not a halfpenny to call his own. He walked home through the Park, with his hands in his pockets, very glad to think that he had no longer any obligation to produce copy, and not much concerned about his empty purse, for he had the true Bohemian feeling—I don’t know whether to call it an incredulity or a faith—about money. He got into conversation with some children (he was always fond of the young); through them he scraped acquaintance with the nurserymaid; then he fell in tow with an old man covered with sham jewellery, who whiled away some time in a very humorous manner; and finally night began to overtake him without much prospect of dinner. Like the prodigal son, he began to reflect upon his circumstances; and suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he exclaimed, with a laugh, “Egad, I’ll go visit my cousins in the country.”
He made up his kit in the course of the next day, and borrowed some money among his penniless acquaintance. It was not enough to carry him to his journey’s end, and he accomplished the last score of miles on foot. He was weary, and it was already dark when he reached the iron gate and the approach of lilacs. He drew near the house with more emotion than he had anticipated; his heart beat painfully; and after he had pulled the bell he felt inclined to run away.
Malcolm and his wife were sitting over the fire. She was about some needlework, and he had just given vent to a portentous yawn, when the servant brought in a soiled visiting card.
“Mr. John Falconer,” read Malcolm. “God bless me!”
“Of all places in the world,” cried Mary, “what should bring him here?”
“We must see him, of course,” observed the husband.
“It is most annoying—after so many years!” said the wife.
“Show Mr. Falconer in.”
He was not going to be welcomed with much warmth, it would appear. The fact is, both Malcolm and Mary had reasons of their own. On his part, John was recuperating his cynicism on the doorstep; and when he was asked to follow the servant, instead of seeing his cousin come towards him with open arms, he felt as if a leading article were too good for mankind.
When he came to the door of the room, he stopped with a painful impression. The room and the two people seemed unchanged. A gush of regret and love came over him in a moment, and all his hard thoughts melted and disappeared. Nor was he more struck with their unchanged looks than they with the pitiful alteration that had overtaken him in his knotless and arduous existence. They had been preserved in a bottle of Domestic Spirits; he had been blown about with all winds. He was bald, haggard, and lean. And when he dashed forward and caught each of them by a hand, and cried, “Malcolm!—Mary!—Malcolm!” their hearts thawed towards him, and they wrung him by the hand, and made as much of him as if they had been longing for his return.
“My uncle’s dead?” he asked, suddenly, as if he had heard some rumour, but desired corroboration.
“Eighteen years ago last winter,” answered Malcolm. “He died asking your forgiveness.”
“Eighteen—eighteen years ago!” John repeated. “And my forgiveness! Why, God help us all, is that not strange?”
He looked so dazed and half-crazy that Malcolm tried to alter the tenor of his thoughts; but he stuck to his point.
“He must have been changed,” he said; “greatly changed. I would give my hand off, now, to have seen him before he died. He was a grand old man, our uncle, Colonel Falconer; God rest his soul, he was a grand old man! And yourselves,” he added, with a sudden and most engaging change of manner; “tell me how happy you are, and exaggerate if you can. You know you’re the only two old friends that I possess in this big world. Tell me about the children, Mary!”
It was long past twelve before Mary retired, and nearer four than three when her lord followed her. And the next day John was domesticated at Grangehead; no one would listen to any talk of limitation; here was a family which had been scattered by an unkind fate, and was now happily reunited.
There was plenty for John to do. Among these quite idle people another idler seemed rather a busy personage. He addicted himself, from constitutional considerations, to gardening—gardening being taken in its usual amateur sense of digging potatoes for ten minutes in the forenoon, and hanging round all the evening with a straw hat and a watering-pot. He recommended a course of reading for the oldest boy, comprising some slashing Radical works which took Malcolm’s breath away. And with the young children he was always charming. He would sit on a garden seat the whole summer day, smoking a clay pipe and telling them stories; every now and then it would be, “Run away and give Jane my very respectful compliments, and ask her to be so very polite as send me out a glass of beer.”
He had many perplexing ways. It was impossible to guess when he might go to bed or when he might rise. He could not be trusted with the slightest message; he would sometimes insult visitors on controversial topics; and he firmly refused to go to church, which made a great scandal throughout the parish. The most charitable verdict was one by an emphatic middle-aged maiden lady, who had read all sorts of books, from “Erechtheus” to “Lothair,” and so acquired a secondhand acquaintance with life. “He is quite a literary man, my dear,” she explained. “They are generally rather French in their habits.”
In the meanwhile a great revolution was happening in John’s mind. He no longer looked back with a sneer upon his own heroics: he took them in deadly earnest; he shunned the parapet wall where he had sat with Mary; he had dark, fitful humours, and affected long and solitary walks. Malcolm was sorry to remark these symptoms; poor John was so eccentric!
One day a careless servant let the rope fall into the draw-well. John had always liked clambering and start fits of exercise; he descended the well, and came up with the rope sure enough, but also with a little key sorely rusted. By the look of it, it must have lain for many years on the ledge where his hand had encountered it. Malcolm and he were alone in that cool, damp corner under the laurels and the yew; at the end of a path some way off they could see the sun lying bright and solid on the open; and this increased their grateful sense of shadow.
Malcolm was upset when John showed him the key. “This is a very extraordinary providence,” he said, with some solemnity; “this key has not reappeared for nothing. I threw it down on purpose.”
“Let us throw it in again,” answered John; and he was preparing to suit the action to the words, when Malcolm caught his arm.
“No, no; give it me!” he said. “Since it has come back, God’s will be done.”
“I say,” said John, sitting down on the edge of the well and folding his arms, “this won’t do. It’s true you have a tendency to pious ejaculation, a substitute for a trick you used to have in old days. But that particular form means business. It means ‘here’s something I don’t like at any possible price, and I decline dealing.’ It means ‘God’s will be done, and in the meantime I’ll do all I can to see that it isn’t.’ It means as near as may be ‘damn it!’ Explain yourself.”
“John, John! I’m afraid you’ve lost all your religion.”
“Why, as to that, I’m rather afraid I have. But I’m after the key just now. Is it the key of Bluebeard’s cellar, or of the subterranean passage which connects this ruinous pile with the seacoast? You’re looking down in the mouth, man. Throw it into the well, and defy augury.”
“I feel down in the mouth,” answered Malcolm. “John,” he added, lowering his voice, “do you believe in special providences?”
“Certainly not,” answered John.
“Well, I sometimes do, and this—mark my words—this is one.”
“This? Which?” demanded John; “the key, or the well? or—or me, perhaps? Am I a special providence? I’ve been a special correspondent often enough.”
“The whole occurrence,” answered Malcolm; “the—the circumstance. It is providential, John, and it means mischief.”
“As far as I can find out,” replied the other, “providence generally does.”
“That is the kind of talk that a man repents when he comes to die,” observed Malcolm, sententiously.
“I didn’t mean to shock you. It was merely a criticism of how people use their words. As for the subject itself, I decline jurisdiction. I know nothing of it, and care about as much.”
“You don’t believe in a providence at all, I fancy.”
“My God! how can I—with my life?” asked John.
“I can—with mine,” returned Malcolm, rosily.
John sneered.
“I have no doubt I could do so too,” said he, “if I had plenty of money and a wife and a litter of children. But then, you see, I haven’t.”
“I suppose you might have had them if you’d chosen,” answered Malcolm, pettishly.
“Well, do you know, I rather suppose I might,” said John; and he stared the other strangely between the eyes.
“I shall never understand you, John.”
“I don’t suppose you ever will.”
And the pair separated; Malcolm went into the house with the key, and it was John’s hour for gardening.
Mary was an admirable Woman, and all that. At the same time she was not altogether a fool. She used to make poetry with John in the days of their engagement; since then she had read the History of England (which is more than the reader can say), a cookery book, a work on crochet, a vast quantity of novels and newspapers, and “How I Found Livingstone,” by Mr. Stanley. In fact, she was quite literary in her tastes. She had a strong, good head, a quiet and perfectly inflexible character, and no knowledge of the world. She was almost entirely engrossed by maternity; her husband had become the father of her children.
John she regarded somewhat in the light of an under-nursery-maid, who was also a pleasant companion for herself. She unmercifully abused his good-will, and never imagined that she was not conferring favours.
One day she and John were taking care of the two youngest at that seat beside the parapet which John was so careful to avoid when he was alone. Mary settled herself luxuriously in one corner and got her work ready.
“Now, if we had a book, you might read to me; that would be nice,” she said.
“Shall I fetch one?” he asked.
“Oh, no; never mind. We can talk, and that’ll do just as well. Charlie, come back; do you hear me? There’s that wretched child on the parapet, John; do take him away.”
“I came here the morning I left Grangehead, for ever, as I thought,” said John, returning to his seat. “It was before dawn, and you couldn’t see much across the road; it was like looking into my future. And I made a great many good resolutions, nearly all of which I have broken.”
“How very like you!” she said.
“Isn’t it?”
“And what were they all about?”
“A great many things. I was never to return to Grangehead for one.”
“I’m glad you’ve broken that!”
“I was always to be sober and say my prayers, for another.”
“I’m afraid you’ve broken that, too.”
“And then I was never to love anyone but you,” he went on.
“Oh, oh!” she said, “and that was the first to go!”
“I have never said so,” he answered. “I never said I had broken them all.” She stole a glance at him; he was looking straight before him on the ground.
“I’ve dropped my worsted!” she said. “How stupid! Will you pick it up? Thanks.”
John was a little huffed; he sat and brooded, while Mary talked easily of this or that, teething or measles, the doctor’s wife or the clergyman’s maiden sister.
“The clergyman’s an ass,” broke in John.
“How do you know, when you never go to hear him?”
“Didn’t he dine here? And the doctor, too? He’s another ass.”
“Do you think we are all asses, then—we people in the country?” she asked.
“All but you, upon my word.”
“And Malcolm?”
“Malcolm? Oh, Malcolm’s a different thing. I was an ass myself, as long as I lived here; and I’ve carried the panniers ever since in consequence. It’s a poor thing to start in life with empty pockets and a broken heart! Ah, Mary! you don’t know what a business it is to leave all that you love in the world and go out among strangers. Do you remember”—he had grown warm now—“do you remember the last evening we were here? It was such a beautiful evening! I thought you hated me, and it decided my life.”
She smiled. He had been banished Grangehead for insulting the Colonel while drunk; that was what had decided his life.
“You were a very silly fellow,” she said. “Why was I to hate you? I never hated anybody, far less an old friend like you.”
“You hadn’t written some verses for my birthday, as you promised. And—and you wouldn’t let me kiss you.”
“I have no doubt I was quite right,” she said, decisively. “May I trouble you to look after Charlie? he is on the wall again. And, oh! I think I will ask you to fetch a book; it will be so nice to be read to.”
She was alarmed and angry; even through her treble armour of innocence, pride, and selfishness she became aware that this man still loved her. It was insulting, it was cruel of him to refer to the time of their engagement. And in such a way, too! It was an indignity—it was almost a disgrace. She felt hot all over. “I wish,” she exclaimed, fervently, “I wish he had never come back. How are we ever to get rid of him without a scene?”
As John was coming back with the book, he met her rustling down the alley in great pomp, with a child in each hand. She had changed her mind; she would go into the house and rest; and she dismissed him with a queenly inclination.
John was furious; he went away and walked. By a sort of instinct he took the same road as on a former occasion, and found himself at the county town. He dined at the inn, and spent the evening in a corner of the smoking-room, drinking and sneering to himself at the conversation of the other guests. On one occasion he interfered with a few pleasant words, which nearly brought about a fight. The quarrel was adjusted after a fashion, and somewhat as spilt wine is covered with a napkin; he refused to apologise, and the whole company turned their backs on him. He was vastly pleased at this, and redoubled his cynicism.
It was quite late when he got home; the servants had gone to bed, and Malcolm opened the door himself. John, with his hands in his trousers pockets, regarded him offensively, as he put up the chain and shot the bolts.
“You are late,” said Malcolm, quietly.
But John only made answer with an affected laugh, and went away upstairs without salutation.
The next morning it rained heavily. John was later than usual; and while he was sitting alone over breakfast, Malcolm came in and took a chair. He seemed embarrassed.
“My dear John,” he began, “if I say anything on the subject, you will believe it is entirely for your own good; but last night I could not help thinking—”
“My dear Malcolm,” interrupted John, “I had had a glass. Why, why beat about the bush?”
“You admit it; I am glad of that. Now, do allow me to say one word. You should strive against this tendency. It has done you harm enough. Make an effort.”
John was irritated.
“I live here on your charity, of course,” he said; “and the position is enviable. But you can have no more idea of what there is in my heart than of what goes on in the farthest of the stars. You often enough admit that you do not understand me; try to act upon the idea. I drank too much last night. Do you know why? Because I like drinking? Because I was in high spirits, perhaps? Man, you know nothing of sorrow.”
“You may be as sorrowful as you please,” objected Malcolm. “I am grieved to hear of it. I trust it’s through no fault of mine; but surely, surely, that’s no reason for—well, for—”
“For making a beast of myself?” suggested John. “Enough of this,” he added, rising from the table. “I understand your feeling in this matter. You cannot have a drunkard in the house; of course not. I am not going to promise amendment; I do not aspire so high. But you shall be rid of me today.”
“You are speaking in anger, John; in irritation, at least. Do you remember our talk in the avenue on the night of your eighteenth birthday? You said then, what we had often agreed before, that we were to share our fortunes.”
“Green-sickness—romantic boys,” said John, with a wave of his hand.
“You did not think so then, when you had all to expect; nor do I think so now that all is mine. Of course, I have a family; of course, our plans were a little Utopian. But believe me, John, you are doing me the greatest favour in your power by staying here. I respect myself more highly.”
“Oh, if it comes to that—” said John, with a laugh.
“You’ll stay?” asked Malcolm, holding out his hand.
“As you will,” replied John, taking it carelessly. “I own I like my ease; I like gardening and country butter, and the pride of independence I can do without. Besides,” with a sudden change of manner, “who should have a better right than I?” And with that he went away.
Malcolm shook his head. “He is not cordial,” he thought. “There is something between us. I wish I had held my tongue; and yet I can’t have him staggering in here at all hours of the morning.”
John went upstairs to a long, low apartment, part lumber-room, part play-room. A considerable library had been brought by Mary Rolland from Hutton at the time of her father’s death, but it had never been unpacked until John arrived and offered his services. He went about it leisurely enough; he dallied and lingered over it as a good occupation for wet mornings; and if he ever was two hours on end over his task, for an hour and a-half of that he would be sitting on the floor with some curious book.
The packing-cases were at one end of the room behind a screen; quite at the other end was the fireplace. In about half an hour Mary came in and took a seat by the hearth. John put his head round the end of the screen, wished her a good morning somewhat coldly, and disappeared again. She could hear him take the books out of the case, and lay them on the floor; now and then he cleared his throat. Outside, the rain fell plump and steady; the fire had been lit in honour of the wet day, and the flames prattled pleasantly and the cinders sometimes dropped into the ash-pit. Mary was idly conscious of all these noises: they served her instead of a train of reflection to enliven her work.
John had been silent for some time; he had plainly found something of interest and begun to read, when Mary was startled by a strange sound from behind the screen. It was something between a gasp and a groan. “What’s wrong with him now?” she wondered; but complete silence followed, broken only by the rain and the fire. She became a little uneasy in spite of herself, and again heartily wished that John had never returned to Grangehead.
At last, and rather suddenly, John rose, came round the screen, and advanced towards her with a paper in his hand. But he was no longer the same man; he looked twenty years older—or was it twenty years younger?
“Did you write that?” he asked, hoarsely, as he handed her the paper.
It contained some girlish verses. They were headed, “To my dear John, on his eighteenth birthday, 12th May, 18—,” and began, “Oh, my dear John, I am so fond of you.” It was not the quality of the verse, however, that called the blood up to Mary Falconer’s cheek. Her matronly pride was touched; she resented John’s emotion like a slur.
“Suppose I did,” she answered, as she threw it straight into the fire; “what of that?”
“Then you did love me?” he went on.
“You know very well we were engaged,” she answered. “I hope I have always known my duty” (this with a tremor); “as long as I was engaged to you, of course I had no thought of anyone else. I cannot conceive what you mean by these questions. It is most unfeeling—most rude.”
John gazed at her with a desolate look in his eyes. “If I had only known!” he said; “if I had only, only known!” And then he was silent for awhile. “But you love your husband now?” he demanded, with sudden fierceness.
“I shall ask you to leave the room, Mr. Falconer,” she said, quivering all over, and making a fine picture of indignation.
“Thank God for that! thank God for that!” he answered, with a sort of laugh. She was unable to move, or she would have quitted the room herself; he looked her all over from head to foot, then he looked into the fire; a little stream of blood began to trickle out of one nostril (he kept the old tendency), but he did not seem to observe the circumstance. At last he turned and went away without a word. At the top of the stairs she heard him slip and fall; he lay for perhaps half a minute; then he picked himself up, went heavily down the steps, and she heard the door close behind him, as he went out.
She recovered herself almost at once. “Scene or no scene,” she determined, “he shall not be two days longer in this house.” She had no pity for him; she was conscious of nothing but the offence and the awkwardness. So she determined to be rid of him anyhow; and she was perfectly right. She sought her husband at once.
Poor Malcolm! here was a position, with a vengeance. As he sat, with his uncle’s last letter open on his knee, and his wife’s words still ringing in his ears, I wonder whether he was not really the most unfortunate of the two. I am sure he thought so himself. What could have tempted John to behave in so absurd a manner? How was he to guess that he had come home drunk on purpose? What was the good of making a kettle of fish like this, instead of letting things go to the devil quietly in their own way? “Oh!” he cried, finding his old impropriety of expression in the disturbance of the moment, “confound all your heroes!”
John had a very dismal walk in the rain, and came back from it with the settled intention of leaving Grangehead that evening. The situation could not be prolonged either with dignity or comfort. He asked the servant for Mr. Falconer, and was directed to the library.
Malcolm caught sight of him as he entered, dropped his eyes guiltily upon the table, and made a great show of writing. John walked backwards and forwards behind him, like a caged beast; he, too, had prepared his speech, but there was a ball in his throat. He cleared his throat repeatedly, and at length said—
“John!”
He was rather afraid it had been inaudible, and so he repeated it.
“Eh?” said John, stopping suddenly in his walk.
It was so fiercely spoken, that Malcolm was a little flustered.
“I only wished a word with you,” he answered apologetically.
“Ah!” said John.
Malcolm looked at the paper on which he had been scribbling his own name over and over again to keep up the feint of correspondence. He read all these repetitions from beginning to end, and seemed to feel refreshed. To the last signature he appended his address in a very careful style of penmanship. Then he cleared his throat as if he were going to begin, and fell to examining the nib of the pen upon his thumb-nail.
“Suppose you were to go on,” suggested John.
“Oh, I say, John,” Malcolm dashed into it, with a gasp, “I’m very sorry, and—and all that, particularly after what took place this morning; but my wife thinks you had better go away after all—in fact, she insists upon it. Personally, I’m very much disappointed; but of course this kind of thing will happen, I suppose; and—and of course very disagreeable it is. In short—”
He wiped his brow. All his prepared eloquence had deserted him. He was hopelessly entangled, and felt like an imbecile. A curious flame caught his eye and fascinated him at once. He kept staring at it with all his might, telling himself he was thinking what to say next, and not doing so. As he thus sat stupefied, he became conscious, by some electric sympathy, that John was nearer him than he had been, and raised his head with a sudden movement. Their eyes met in the mirror. John’s face was deformed with hatred, and in an instant Malcolm’s was stricken into the scarcely less hideous image of fear. As they waited, watching each other in the mirror with contracted eyelids, John’s hate seemed to increase in proportion with Malcolm’s terror, until they looked like a couple of lost spirits.
Malcolm was the first to throw off the spell. With something like a cry he leaped up and turned about as if to defend himself. If he had sat still, nothing in all likelihood would have happened; but his own action courted an onslaught. Before he had half-faced round, he was forced back against the table; the table upset and, being a light thing, broke in twain between the legs; and the two men fell among its ruins into the hearth. Malcolm was underneath, and his head struck sharply against the iron grate.
When he came to himself, his shirt was loosed, his brow had been wet with ink in default of water, and he was propped upon John’s knee.
“Do you feel better?” asked John.
“Why, what’s wrong? Why am I here? Where’s Mary?”
“Oh, Mary’s all right!” answered John, bitterly; “and you’re not much worse. You’ve broken your head, and serve you right! And now, if you please, we’ll say good-bye.” He laid Malcolm’s head on the floor, and rose to his feet. At the door he turned, and added, in a kinder tone, “Good-bye, old man.” And with that he was gone.
Malcolm had brown paper and vinegar applied to the back of his head, and was rather sulky all that evening. It rained without intermission, and the roads in that part of the country were hardly passable for travellers on foot.