Chapter III

As on the finger of a throned queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed;
So are those errors that in thee are seen,
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
SHAKESPEARE.

Mr. Gresham and his daughter were passing their evening alone. There was a bright fire in the stately drawing-room, for it was the end of March, and the March air was sharp and cold; and on each side of it, though at a considerable distance from each other, the inmates were sitting. Mr. Gresham was nobly erect, with a lamp at his side, and a newspaper before him; Angela was on a sofa idly and wearily perusing a novel of the most trifling kind. Novels at this moment were her chief employment and solace, and having none to direct her taste, and being dependent on the caprice or fancy of her bookseller, it was not remarkable that her hours were spent, in discovering that the books she read were quite unworthy of the attention of any rational being.

This night the novel was unusually worthless, and having passed a day enlivened only by the attendance of her masters, a call from the daughters of her enemy, Mrs. Vansittart, (young ladies in no degree favoured with her good graces), and a stately drive in her chariot, Angela was in a mood to be pleased with anything that arose in the form of a change or a novelty.

There was a knock at the door, an arrival, an announcement, and the entrance of a most unexpected guest.

“Mr. Vavasour!” exclaimed Angela, with almost a scream of joy.

“Mr. Vavasour!” said Mr. Gresham, with measured but delighted surprise.

Robert had in the first moment paused hesitatingly at the door; but at these warm expressions of pleasure he came forward. How very welcome he was the most diffident must have perceived, and the shade of doubt and embarrassment which had at first tinged his countenance, and slackened his steps, passed away.

“You must be very much surprised to see me, Mr. Gresham, at such an hour,” he began. “I know it is a singular time for a call in England; but I have been living abroad, and there it is fashionable and customary, and so I hope you will excuse my practising my foreign manners upon you.”

“At any time, Mr. Vavasour, at any hour,” Mr. Gresham replied, his words almost too big for expression, “always welcome; at this moment especially welcome because so totally unexpected. I have only to regret that I and my daughter are alone. I have a circle of friends who would most gratefully receive the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

“But I came to see _you_, Mr. Gresham, and not your friends. To tell you the truth, my particular wish is to avoid your friends. I came to your door last night, but there were lights and carriages, and it all looked a great deal too grand for me. I was half afraid I should find the same thing to-night, but fortunately I was mistaken. So here I am.”

“And most welcome, let me again assure you. Angela, my love, offer Mr. Vavasour some tea, or some other refreshment, as may be agreeable to him.”

“Will you have some tea?” she asked in reply; “it will be here directly.”

“Yes, but don’t hurry it. I am in no hurry. I will stay if I may.” And as Angela now reseated herself in her former place he followed, and drew a chair close to her side.

“Well, Miss Gresham,” he began, “how goes the world with you?”

“Very tediously,” she replied, laughing. “I always hated London, and now I hate it worse than ever.”

“That’s right, nothing like a downright opinion. But hate London as you may, it is good for you to come up. Change is good for man and beast. There is a moral lesson which you will do well to remember.”

“Except that I don’t agree to it,” cried Angela, eagerly. “I don’t wish for change. I wish to be _always_ doing what I like best.”

“Ah! that’s quite another thing,” said Robert, with a shake of his head, “and here is an opportunity for a real moral lesson, if I were competent to give it; but moral lessons are beyond me.”

“My daughter is extremely attached to Underwood, Mr. Vavasour,” broke in Mr. Gresham; “and, indeed, to all your neighbourhood. London, with all its pleasures, has no charms compared with it.”

Robert’s brow contracted for an instant, and a dark shade passed over his face, but it was driven away by something darker as he made a light and playful answer.

No experienced observer of Robert’s countenance could have failed to perceive that a change had passed over it during the last few months. He looked older and more careworn, but at the same time more reckless and daring. His handsome features nothing could alter, but even they looked less refined in their beauty. It was as plain as the words of a printed page, that the dawn which had seemed at hand was overcast, and clouded by a deeper night. Mr. Gresham, however, was not acute enough to observe, and Angela was too happy to see him to criticise.

“Why is your life so tedious?” Robert asked of Angela, lowering his voice not exactly to a whisper, but to a confidential tone. He did it not for the question’s sake, but to give a hint to Mr. Gresham.

The hint was broad, and being sedulous to please his guest, immediately understood and taken. “If you will excuse me, Mr. Vavasour, being a man of business, I will make the most of my spare time, and leave you to my daughter, while I master the news of the day. You will excuse me.”

“Oh! pray don’t treat me like a stranger, Mr. Gresham,” was very civilly said; and Mr. Gresham sat down, and devoted himself to his newspaper, or rather to the contemplation of the pleasant sight that was before his eyes.

Without waiting for an answer to his former question, Robert now addressed another to Angela, in the same tone. “Have you seen any of my family of late, Miss Gresham? Have you seen Everard?”

“No,” she said, blushing deeply, “not since January.”

He saw the blush, and again a slight contraction of brow and darkness of countenance were visible; but he paid no other heed to what she said. “Have you heard anything? Have you heard from ... anybody?”

“I sometimes write to Hope, and then she answers. But I have nothing to say except to abuse the world, and that you know she does not like to hear. I always mean to write, and I shall write in a few days, I am pretty sure.”

“I shall be very much obliged to you, Miss Gresham, when you do write, not to say you have seen me.” He lowered his voice still more as he spoke.

“Oh, Mr. Vavasour, how very strange! Why do you ask such a thing?”

“Promise me,” he said, without heeding her. “I really must have you promise.”

“And I really can’t,” she replied quickly. “It is a sort of thing I should not like to do.”

“Very well, then, you drive me away. I am staying in London alone, and I thought, perhaps, I might occasionally look in of an evening, and make a sort of a home of your house; but if you will not do as I ask, you drive me away.”

“I am sure,” she cried, warmly, “I should be grieved to do that; but I must tell you plainly that it sounds to me a bad kind of a thing, and unless you tell me the reason why you ask it, I will not promise.”

“I will tell you then; but remember, Miss Gresham, if I confide in you I will not have what I say repeated. The reason is that I am in debt, and I do not wish my father to know. It will soon be over, at least I hope and expect it will, and so I do not wish to give him or myself the pain of his knowing anything about it. There is my reason; the exact truth. Now will you do what I ask?”

“I suppose I must,” she said, reluctantly. “Now you have told me this, how _can_ I tell? I would not for the whole world.”

“Thank you.” After a pause, he added, “You are very good not to lecture me. Most women would make a fine parley over it.”

“I am not good enough to be a lecturer,” she said, gravely, “but I don’t like it any the better for that.”

“You think me a great brute?” he said, earnestly. “Say it out! You can’t think me a greater than I think myself.”

“No, no, not that. But, Mr. Vavasour, one thing; will you not write yourself? You need not say anything about debt you know.”

“No, I can’t. I don’t wish it to be known that I am in London. I hardly ever go out, except in the evening.”

“But only consider how anxious they are. Hope does not say so, but I had a letter from Mr. Addison one day, and he did.”

Robert fell into a fit of musing, painful enough, by the look of his countenance. At last he roused himself, and said, “No, Miss Gresham, I can’t. If I wrote I must deceive, and I will not be a hypocrite. However bad I may be I will _never_ be a hypocrite. They must bear anxiety a short time longer. I hope it will be but a short time, and then....”

“And then; what ...?”

“And then an end,” he said, with a faint smile, “and I hope we shall all be good and happy.”

Angela looked very thoughtful.

“Do you hate me?” he inquired, earnestly, looking keenly into her face.

“No,” she replied, startled; and then, laughing, “Perhaps I ought, but I cannot say I do.”

“Then don’t. I may deserve it, but don’t. Don’t judge harshly of things which you cannot understand.”

“Well, I won’t.”

“And may I sometimes look in of an evening?”

“Certainly, yes, so far as I am concerned. You cannot think how thankful I was for your appearance to-night. My life sometimes reaches that point of weariness that I think I shall go mad.”

“And why? Why is your life so tedious?”

“The people. If you could but see the people I live with.”

“I can guess,” he said, laughing, driving away the graver mood that had been upon him. “Young ladies full of airs, and graces, and love, and partners; young gentlemen full of airs and graces, jewels, and themselves; elderly gentlemen without graces, fond of riches and food; and elderly ladies, mothers and wives to all the rest.”

“Exactly,” cried Angela laughing also, “those are my friends. Do you call them pleasant companions?”

“Certainly not; you should try and get better ones.”

“But that is what I can’t do. Till I made acquaintance with your family, I never, or hardly ever, saw any one I liked; and now you have all spoiled me for _anything_ else. I cannot like common people now.”

“You are most kind and flattering, Miss Gresham,” said Robert smiling. “I wish I for one was more worthy of such good compliments. I must make myself so.”

The weariness of Angela’s life, and the tediousness of her friends was a very fertile subject with her. She was never tired of dilating upon it, and for some time longer she made her confidences to Robert, and received his full sympathy. The conversation was gay and lively, though so conducted as not to reach her father’s ears, and when he rose up and said he must go, Angela felt lighter and happier than she had done for many a day; she longed only that she might disburden her mind more fully of the accumulated weight of annoyances, which had been collecting during many past months.

Her countenance brightened while she heard her father’s warm invitation to his guest, begging him to look in upon them again; and listened to Robert’s ready promise to do so whenever he had an opportunity, and found them alone; and yet her conscience smote her all the while.

Mr. Gresham followed Robert to the door, and opened it for him, and Robert engaged him in conversation, until he had drawn him outside. He then made a sign to him to follow him a few steps further, and then in a low and rapid voice addressed him.

“I don’t want to come to your house, Mr. Gresham, under false pretences, so I may as well tell you at once the circumstances in which I stand. I am in debt, and I do not wish my father to know of it, or even to guess that I am in London. I have just been requesting Miss Gresham not to mention my visits, or my name, and I must beg of you the same favour. I hope circumstances may arise to clear me before long, but till that time comes I am under a cloud I would not come to your house and take advantage of your kindness in allowing me to associate with your daughter, without telling you plainly how matters stand with me, and it is now your province to forbid my return if you choose. I put myself entirely in your hands, but if you give me leave to come, you must take the consequences.”

So much does manner do, that others, besides Mr. Gresham, might have been taken by the frankness of Robert’s declaration, and the open way in which he made known his situation, and suggested his designs. Mr. Gresham was more than taken, he was even overpowered by the honour Robert did him, in making him the repository of his private circumstances.

“I thank you, Mr. Vavasour,” he replied, warmly grasping his hand, “for the very honourable manner in which you have conducted yourself towards me on this occasion. I cannot find words to express my sense of it. Let me assure you that your presence, even under the circumstances you mention, is welcome, most welcome. I would not be understood to say that, in general terms, I approve of habits of irregular extravagance; I am very far from so doing; but I am aware that among young men of distinction, at certain periods of their lives, such habits are not uncommon, and ... and ... I believe I know how to make allowances;” and here, what between his moral principles, and his wish to encourage Robert, he came to a stand still, and finished his argument by a very friendly shake of the hand, which was intended to say that he wiped out the past, and trusted him for the future.

“Thank you, Mr. Gresham, you are very kind. Then you allow me to come notwithstanding my present position.”

“After the very honourable manner in which you have conducted yourself towards me, my dear Mr. Vavasour, I should not feel myself justified in refusing my permission to your request. But allow me to add ...” he stopped and cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon for the suggestion, but allow me to say that if in any way I can serve you, my means are such...”--he placed his hands under his coat tails for a moment--“that to be of service would be at once a convenience and a pleasure. You understand me, Mr. Vavasour. My doors are open to you. Make such use of me as you please.”

A flush passed over Robert’s face--if of gratification and relief, yet not purely so. “I am very grateful to you for your kind expressions,” he said, gravely, “though at the same time they make me ashamed of myself. I will say no more at present. Perhaps a time may come when I shall remind you of them.”

“I shall need no reminding,” was the warm and gracious reply, accompanied by another shake of the hand; and the strange companions parted.

Mr. Gresham walked up the stairs elevating his head, as if endeavouring to catch a distant view of the old towers of Audley Court; and his chest expanded, and his lips broke into a smile as he passed along.

Robert put on a great coat, pulled his hat over his brows, and paced onward with rapid steps as if to escape from the reflections of his own mind; but the rapid steps were not so available as to drown the sound of a mingled sigh and groan, which burst from his lips as he left his destiny behind him.