The Young Step-Mother Part 72

'If you knew the coercion,' muttered Gilbert. 'I protest, as I would to my dying day, that I had no intention of going near the stables when I set out, and would never have consented could I have helped it.'

'And why could not you help it?'

Gilbert gasped. 'Tritton brought me a message from Dusautoy, insisting on my meeting him there. It was too late to take Maurice home, and I could not send him with Archie. I expected only to exchange a few words at the door. It was Tritton who took Maurice away to the stables.'

'I hear, but I do not see the compulsion, only the extraordinary weakness that leads you everywhere after those men.'

'I must tell you, I suppose,' groaned Gilbert; 'I can bear anything but this. There's a miserable money entanglement that lays me under a certain obligation to Dusautoy.'

'Your father believed you had told him of all your debts,' she said, in a tone of increased scorn and disappointment.

'I did--I mean--Oh! Mrs. Kendal, believe me, I intended to have told him the utmost farthing--I thought I had done so--but this was a thing--Dusautoy had persuaded me into half consenting to have some wine with him from a cheating Portuguese--then ordered more than ever I knew of, and the man went and became bankrupt, and sent in a great abominable bill that I no more owned, nor had reason to expect than my horse.'

'So you preferred intriguing with this man to applying openly to your father?'

'It was no doing of mine. It was forced upon me, and, in fact, the account was mixed up with his. It was the most evil hour of my life when I consented. I've not had a moment's peace or happiness since, and it was the promise of the bill receipted that led me to this place.'

'And why was this place chosen for the meeting? You and Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy live only too near one another.'

'He is not at the Vicarage,' faltered Gilbert.

Albinia suddenly grew pale with apprehension. 'Gilbert,' she said, 'there is only one thing that could make this business worse;' and as she saw his change of countenance, she continued, 'Then it is so, and Lucy is his object.'

'He did not speak, but his face was that of a convicted traitor, and fresh perceptions crowded on her, as she exclaimed, horror struck, 'The ink! Yes, when you said she was with the Dusautoys! I understand! He has been in hiding, he has been here! And this expedition was to arrange a clandestine meeting between them under your father's own roof!

You conniving! you who said you would sooner see your sister sold to Legree!'

'It is all true,' said Gilbert, moodily, his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, 'and if the utmost misery for weeks past could be any atonement, it would be mine. But at least I have done nothing willingly to bring them together. I have only gone on in the hope and trust that I was some protection to poor Lucy.'

'Fine protection,' sighed Albinia. 'And how has it been? how does it stand?'

'Why, they met at Brighton, I believe. She used to walk on the chain pier before breakfast, and he met her there. If he chooses, he can make any one do what he likes, because he does not understand no for an answer. Then when she came home, he used to meet her on the bridge, when you sent her out for a turn in the evening, and sometimes she would make me take her out walking to meet him. Don't you see how utterly miserable it was for me; when they had volunteered this help all out of kindness, it was impossible for me to speak to you.'

Albinia made a sound of contempt, and said, 'Go on.'

'That time when you and Mr. Hope saw them, Lucy was frightened, and they had a quarrel, he went away, and I hoped and trusted it had died out.

I heard no more till yesterday, when I was dragged into giving him this meeting. It seems that he had only just discovered your absence, and wanted to take the opportunity of seeing her. I was in hopes you would have come back; I a.s.sured him you would; but he chose to watch, till evening, and then Lucy was to meet him in the conservatory. Poor Lucy, you must not be very angry with her, for she was much averse to it, and I enclosed a letter from her to forbid him to come. I thought all was safe, till I actually heard their voices, and grandmamma got into an agitation, and Sophy was running about wild to find Lucy. When you came home, papa's opening the door frightened Lucy, and it seems that Dusautoy thought that she was going to faint and scream, and laid hold of the ink instead of the eau-de-cologne. There! I believe the ink would have betrayed it without me. Now you have heard everything, Mrs. Kendal, and can believe there is not a more wretched and miserable creature breathing than I am.'

Albinia slowly rose, and put her hand to her brow, as though confused with the tissue of deceit and double dealing.

'Oh! Mrs. Kendal, will you not speak to me?' I solemnly declare that I have told you all.'

'I am thinking of your father.'

With a gesture of acquiescent anguish and despair, he let her pa.s.s, held open the door, and closed it softly, so as not to awaken the happy sleeper.

'Good night,' she said, coldly, and turned away, but his mournful, resigned 'Good night,' was so utterly broken down that her heart was touched, and turning she said, 'Good night, Gilbert, I am sorry for you; I believe it is weakness and not wickedness.'

She held out her hand, but instead of being shaken, it was pressed to his lips, and the fingers were wet with his tears.

Feeling as though the bad dreams of a night had taken shape and life, Albinia stood by the fire in her sitting-room the next morning, trying to rally her judgment, and equally dreading the sight of those who had caused her grief, and of those who would share the shock she had last night experienced.

The first knock announced one whom she did not expect--Gilbert, wretchedly pale from a sleepless night, and his voice scarcely audible.

'I beg your pardon,' he said; 'but I thought I might have led you to be hard on Lucy: I do believe it was against her will.'

Before she could answer, the door flew wide, and in rushed Maurice, shouting, 'Good morning, mamma;' and at his voice Mr. Kendal's dressing-room door was pushed back, and he called, 'Here, Maurice.'

As the boy ran forward, he was met and lifted to his father's breast, while, with a fervency he little understood, though he never forgot it, the words were uttered,

'G.o.d bless you, Maurice, and give you grace to go on to withstand temptation, and speak the truth from your heart!'

Maurice was impressed for a moment, then he recurred to his leading thought--

'May I have the cannon, papa? I did kick--I broke the bottle, but may I have the cannon?'

'Maurice, you are too young to understand the value of your resistance.

Listen to me, my boy, for you must never forget this: you have been taken among persons who, I trust, will never be your companions.'

'Oh!' interrupted Maurice, 'must I never be a jockey?'

'No, Maurice. Horses are perverted to bad purposes by thoughtless men, and you must keep aloof from such. You were not to blame, for you refused to do what you knew to be wrong, and did not know it was an improper place for you.'

'Gilbert took me,' said Maurice, puzzled at the gravity, which convinced him that some one was in fault, and of course it must be himself.

'Gilbert did very wrong,' said Mr. Kendal, 'and henceforth you must learn that you must trust to your own conscience, and no longer believe that all your brother tells you is right.'

Maurice gazed in inquiry, and perceiving his brother's downcast air, ran to his mother, crying, 'Is papa angry?'

'Yes,' said Gilbert, willing to spare her the pain of a reply, 'he is justly angry with me for having exposed you to temptation. Oh, Maurice, if I had been made such as you, it would have been better for us all!'

It was the first perception that a grown person could do wrong, and that person his dear Gilbert. As if the grave countenances were insupportable, he gave a long-drawn breath, hid his face on his mother's knee, and burst into an agony of weeping. He was lifted on her lap in a moment, father and mother both comforting him with a.s.surances that he was a very good boy, and that papa was much pleased with him, Mr. Kendal even putting the cannon into his hand, as a tangible evidence of favour; but the child thrust aside the toy, and sliding down, took hold of his brother's languid, dejected hand, and cried, with a sob and stamp of his foot,

'You shan't say you are naughty: I wont let you!'

Alas! it was a vain repulsion of the truth that this is a wicked world.

Gilbert only put him back, saying,

'You had better go away from me, Maurice: you cannot understand what I have done. Pray Heaven you may never know what I feel!'

Maurice did but cling the tighter, and though Mr. Kendal had not yet addressed the culprit, he respected the force of that innocent love too much to interfere. The bell rang, and they went down, Maurice still holding by his brother, and when his uncle met them, it was touching to see the generous little fellow hanging back, and not giving his own hand till he had seen Gilbert receive the ordinary greeting.

Though Mr. Ferrars had been told nothing, he could not but be aware of the symptoms of a family crisis--the gravity of some, and the pale, jaded looks of others. Lucy was not one of these; she came down with little Albinia in her arms, and began to talk rather airily, excusing herself for not having come down in the evening because that 'horrid ink' had got into her hair, and t.i.ttering a little over the absurdity of her having picked up the inkstand in the dark. Not a word of response did she meet, and her gaiety died away in vague alarm. Sophy, the most innocent, looked wretched, and Maurice absolutely began to cry again, at the failure of some manoeuvre to make his father speak to Gilbert.

His tears broke up the breakfast-party. His mother led him away to reason with him, that, sad as it was, it was better that people should be grieved when they had transgressed, as the only hope of their forgiveness and improvement. Maurice wanted her to reverse the declaration that Gilbert had done wrong; but, alas! this could not be, and she was obliged to send him out with his little sister, hoping that he would work off his grief by exercise. It was mournful to see the first shadow of the penalty of sin falling on the Eden of his childhood!

With an aching heart, she went in search of Lucy, who had taken sanctuary in Mrs. Meadows's room, and was not easily withdrawn from thence to a tete-a-tete. Fearful of falsehood, Albinia began by telling her she knew all, and how little she had expected such a requital of trust.

Lucy exclaimed that it had not been her fault, she had always wanted to tell, and gradually Albinia drew from her the whole avowal, half shamefaced, half exultant.