Chapter XV

Henry, meanwhile, had arrived in London in some elation of mind. There is a common expression of a person’s being “on his high horse,” and he was on the high horse as he travelled from Riddlemere homewards. He thought he had acted with spirit and dignity. What he had done he had done with passionate impulse; but looking back on his conduct, it struck him as being dignified. He admired himself; he hoped others would admire. Above all, one. He did not name her; he did not allow his thoughts to frame the idea consciously; but there ran and tingled about his veins a pleasurable sense of joy in the feeling that she would admire the spirit of his conduct.

It was in this mood that he went home, and he was altogether in good spirits. Careless and affectionate, five months’ absence had washed from his memory all unpleasant thoughts connected with his home; and bestowing on it his own more amiable qualities, he fancied he should see and be seen with pleasure. He longed to kiss his mother, and hear her soft drawling voice; to tumble about a little sister of whom he was fond--in fact, to be at home again.

It was past ten before he got in, and at the first aspect of the party in the drawing-room his fair hopes faded; he began to dismount from his steed, and instead of elation of mind, to feel uneasiness and doubt.

His sister’s sharp “Didn’t I say it was Henry’s bell? Nobody but Henry would make such a noise!”--his father’s silent stare of surprise--and his mother’s “Oh! Henry, why didn’t you let us know?” were all so like his old receptions, that the illusions absence had fostered faded away.

Not even his mother’s fond embrace, none the less fond because of the peevish speech, could do away the impression. He felt blank, and sat down hardly knowing how to explain his return.

But Letitia was really very glad to see him, and her questions, rapidly poured out, soon drew from him a history of the fire. And as he detailed the events of the night, again his spirits rose, for all sat listening to him with wrapt attention. With the extinction of the fire his narrative came to an end. Of the events of the morning he said nothing.

“How brave you must be!” said his mother admiringly. Not that Henry had boasted of his doings. He had simply related all that had taken place. “The very sight of the flames would have taken all my brains away,”--which was no doubt true enough.

“I must say I am glad,” Letitia observed. “Just as she was going to step into her grandeur, to be baffled in this way! It shows, I think----”

“Letitia!” Henry cried in a tone of disgust.

“But I will speak. I say it shows on whose side the elements are. But how did it happen? Who did it--or who is supposed to have done it?”

“I am,” Henry said, shortly and bitterly.

“You!” with a scream, in which even his father joined, laying down the book he held, in his surprise.

“They choose to say so. And if people choose to say a thing in this world, they will say it. That I have learnt. It is no more use to talk to the world than it is to preach a sermon on Algebra in Bedlam. I will tell you what they say;” and, unable to control his excitement, he again, with eagerness, made a narrative of the unfortunate visit he had paid to Nora’s room.

“I don’t say it is quite impossible,” he concluded. “I suppose it is just within the limits of possibility, and so it must be left. It was a most unfortunate accident to happen to anybody; but I really hardly see how it could have been helped.”

“Are you sure it was an accident?” said Mr. Devereux, looking at him with cold scrutiny.

Henry stared--stared so ludicrously, so totally without understanding what his father meant to say, that Letitia burst out laughing.

“Oh! papa, no. How can you imagine such a thing? You might have done it, and would, I believe, with great pleasure; but Henry would not--Henry could not.”

“Could not, indeed!” he cried fiercely, as he saw the meaning. “Who dares say such things?”

“Nobody. At least, _I_ say you could not do it. You would have been burning your own heart and hope and future home. There would have been no sense in it.”

He rose up with an impatient, impetuous movement. Less than ever could he bear that imputation. He would at the moment almost have taken the suggestion of his father to escape from it.

“A pleasant place this is to come to!” he cried, as he rose; and banging the door, he left the room.

Mr. Devereux took up his book. Letitia continued to laugh. Mrs. Devereux sat uneasily. She was thinking of Henry’s comfort, and longing to get to him.

“I wonder if Henry expected dinner?” she said at last.

“He may expect it in vain,” replied her husband, “for he will not have it at home.”

“No,” she said; “and so I think I had better tell him. If he wants dinner he had better go and get it.”

Mr. Devereux made no objection, and she left the room. This was the cleverest thing Mrs. Devereux had ever done in her life. It was a little plan to get to Henry, and it was successful.

She found him helping the housemaid to put his room to rights. As soon as that loud bell rang, guessing, as well as Letitia, whose it was, the faithful housemaid had flown to make it ready; and by dint of good will, and assistance from the nurse and the cook, it was, when he came up, no longer quite as it had lately been, the family lumber-room. While he helped, he was making a variety of droll observations, and he received his mother with perfect good temper.

She found that he had dined, and that a cup of tea would satisfy him. This she got him with her own hands, and sat down with him while he drank it; and, recurring again to her admiration for his bravery, soothed his ruffled spirit, and received from him at parting one of those embraces she prized so dearly.

After breakfast the following morning Henry pursued his father as he was leaving the house to communicate the fact that he had thrown up his appointment under Nora. He felt cowardly about making the communication. The elation of mind had given place to an unpleasant sensation that perhaps he had acted hastily, and like a fool.

His father’s words, however--his cool contempt--his compliment to Henry on his superlative wisdom, sufficed to rouse his spirit again; and with the same dignity with which he had explained his motives to Nora, he laid them before his father. A man who was watched with suspicion could not properly perform the duties of an overseer of others. This was his apology, and the dignity and warmth with which he spoke were not assumed. He felt from his heart what he said. He might not have acted as a wise man; but conscientiousness, if nothing else, was written on his face, and heard in his explanation.

His father looked at him, and something like the passion of curiosity might have been seen in his impassive face. Henry’s desire to do his duty to Nora was altogether beyond his power to understand.

Of his curiosity, however, he said nothing. After a moment he observed,

“It was no will of mine, to have you take such a situation; but it is still less my will to have you throw it up like a fool. How do you propose to earn your bread in future?”

“By my own exertions,” Henry said, with a glow in his cheek. “I am no longer the same man; I have been tried, and I know what I can do. Miss Smith will bear witness that I can work, nor do I suppose Mr. Powderham himself would deny it.”

“Does it never strike you that you have damaged your reputation by your hasty conduct; that you have done the very thing to expose yourself to suspicion.”

“To the suspicion of what?” asked Henry, with sharpness.

“Of having voluntarily set fire to Miss Smythe’s house!” his father said slowly, fixing his eyes upon him.

“Of being an incendiary!” Henry cried, in his violent manner, the blood of all the Devereux, counting from the one whom he fondly loved to consider an ancestor, swelled to bursting in his veins.

“Even so,” replied his father, crossing his arms, and smiling a bitter smile. “Are you sure there was no lingering hope of such a result in the lucifer that was thrown away?”

“If you were not my father you should not dare----” Henry cried passionately, and he flung out of the room.

As he crossed the hall, stamping off to his own regions, Letitia opened the drawing-room door and called to him.

“I was watching for you,” she said. “Do come in here and talk a little. Our house is not so lively that I am not glad of a change.”

He paused a moment; then remarking her face, which indeed looked pale and dreary enough, his wrath evaporated in good-nature.

“What is the matter?” she said, as he followed her into the room, and she saw his flushed countenance.

“Nothing, except that I think the world is infested by a plague of demons.”

“There I agree with you;” and she spoke more soothingly than usual. “But let the demons rest for a while. I want to talk. I want to hear about things. What sort of a place is it down there? Come, do talk. I have not spoken to a rational being for this month past, and I am very glad to have you back.”

Henry’s nature was one which was affected by a word of love or kindness. There may be a little vanity in the composition that is thus easily pleased, yet the larger ingredient is affectionateness of nature. He was gratified at his sister’s expression of pleasure in his society, and he came further into the room, and very amiably answered the few questions she carelessly put, about the house at Riddlemere and the sort of scenery around it. He had been interested by the wild country, and scarcely observing how careless her inquiries were, he entered heartily into the subject.

“Well, and how did you get on with the work?” she then inquired, with more zest. “Was it hard?”

“Not the least hard. Very interesting.”

Letitia laughed.

“Why laugh? If you think I don’t like work, Letitia, you utterly and entirely misunderstand me. I am as sick of idleness as you are of staring out of that window.”

“And that is saying a good deal. Well, don’t be angry, Henry. You know I have yet to learn your new character. I did not mean to offend. And so you got on well--found it all easy?”

“There was nothing in my work that I could not do with proper attention. I should never have had any bother at all, if it had not been for the people I had to deal with; and luckily I had not very much to say to them.”

“What people?”

“Mr. Powderham and that James Field. They are enough to put an angel into a tantarum. I defy a plain, honest man to live with them in peace.”

He was becoming excited, but in the midst of his excitement a faint blush on his sister’s cheek opened his blind eyes to the cause of her questioning. He paused, and then said,

“If you hoped I should become friends with James Field, Letitia, you hoped wrong. It is a thing that could not be. He is not a gentleman.”

“What do you mean by a gentleman?” she asked.

“Nothing to do with birth or fortune. I have seen down there--among the navvies, even, and much more among the country-people--men whose feelings and manners would have done honour to princes. But James Field is not a gentleman.”

“I suppose you quarrelled, if the truth was known.”

“No, we did not quarrel. I did not allow myself to quarrel. Once or twice, when his insolence was more than I could bear, we had words; but we are on as friendly terms now as we were on the first day we met.”

“And that is on no friendly terms at all.”

“Well, I don’t pretend to be a friend. I don’t like him, and I never shall; and I warn you against him, Letitia.”

“I want no warning,” she said, petulantly. “I had better warn you. Take care that he does not cut you out in Miss Smythe’s affections. You have left him the field all to himself.”

“Cut me out!” he began, ever roused at that idea; then muttering only, “a pretty home this is to come to!” he left the room with his usual slam.

Letitia laughed; but then sighed; and the worn, harassed look returned to her face. She was an odious girl, but she had excuses. The dreariness of her life had embittered her mind. Few sought her; none loved her as they had sought and loved Henry, and she lived and breathed only the cold dull atmosphere of her own home.

One person had seemed to seek her, and to him such heart as she had had been yielded. By occasional meetings with him, secret, not so much in the outward form of meeting as in the motives which inspired them to seek each other, a certain excitement had been given to her life. This was now over, and a vague hope, vague and with few illusions about it, was all that was left her. She had hoped to hear some pleasant words from Henry. She had hoped he and Henry might have become friends. The hope was disappointed. She clung to her one dream in spite of what Henry said; yet she felt his words; she knew dimly that he was right, and her one soft feeling was a bitter one.