Chapter IV

Ah! Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,
I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
_Richard the Second._

It was about three weeks after this time that Mr. Addison went one day to visit a housemaid at Underwood, the same who had been ill the previous summer, and who was now declining in health.

The housekeeper at Underwood was a conversible person, who, though well able to solace herself with the society of her equals, was much attached to that of her superiors; and having been for some time cut off from the latter enjoyment, determined to make the most of the opportunity thrown in her way. She watched Mr. Addison as he left the housemaid’s room, and then accompanied him down the stairs, along the passages, and into the garden, giving him some instructions on the best mode of visiting of the sick as they went along. Mr. Addison, always a kind and patient listener, suffered her to proceed without interruption; perhaps, however, only half his intellect followed her words, until having assured him that she esteemed his visit a privilege, she surprised him into interest by thus concluding. “And if, sir, a certain event that is probable should make you as much at home at Underwood as you now are at Audley Court, your society will be duly appreciated.”

“Of what event do you speak?” he enquired, his attention caught less by her words, than by a knowing and confidential look in her face.

“Why, Sir, it is commonly reported, and I believe with truth, that Mr. Vavasour is extremely assiduous in his attentions to Miss Gresham, and, indeed, I am given to understand that matters will soon come to an arrangement between them. It is hinted, indeed, that Mr. Vavasour is conducting his courtship with secresy and mystery; but I refuse to believe such calumnious assertions; for though it is natural to young gentlemen to conceal their proceedings from the observation of the vulgar, it is not to be supposed that he would take a step of such importance, without the sanction of his father and other natural advisers.” Nevertheless, as she looked in Mr. Addison’s face, she did begin to believe it possible, and to glory in her prior information.

Supposing her to speak of Everard, and feeling confident that secresy and mystery in this matter was as far from Everard as from himself, Mr. Addison gravely said, “You say truly, Mrs. Stevenson; and considering how much annoyance you may cause your young mistress by spreading an idle report, I must advise you to dismiss the subject from your mind, until better authority confirms it.”

But Mrs. Stevenson had no intention of dismissing the subject. She told him, indeed, that she should always esteem it a privilege to be advised by him; but, she added, that on this occasion, she believed she was justified in keeping the subject in mind, seeing that in a few days, the marriage, she had reason to imagine, would be announced, “And as I am speaking to one of the family,” she continued, “or I should say a friend of the family, I hope I may be allowed to express my hearty approbation of the alliance. I should have made no objection to Mr. Everard Vavasour; when observation told me that that alliance was possible, I expressed my concurrence to Mr. Cocks in such words as these; ‘wealth is well matched with family, even when family stands without wealth; for family is that thing which wealth can never buy;’ but if such was my feeling with respect to Mr. Everard, what must it be towards Mr. Vavasour, who has been distinguished by Providence with every distinction His bounty can bestow? If I were a young lady, nay if I were a young princess, and every king in Europe was presented to my choice, I would take Mr. Vavasour by the hand before them all.”

She paused, more from want of breath than words or matter, and Mr. Addison seizing the opportunity, after one more grave caution against the spreading of false reports, wished her good morning, and left her.

But though he gave his caution as a point of natural duty, conviction of the truth of what she said had entered his soul. In vain he repeated that the gossip of a large establishment was to be unheeded; with strange tenacity the news he had heard laid hold of his imagination, and as he slowly walked along, his mind was agitated with such feelings of sorrow and dismay as he had scarcely ever experienced before.

All his hopes for the earthly happiness, and the immortal souls of the four young beings, in whom his interests were so deeply rooted, brought to this untimely end; and whether most to mourn for the injured or the injurers, he could not at the moment determine. As to Robert, the revelation of character which this news imparted, was like the rude rending of a veil, and the exhibition of deformity beneath. Amid all his faults and excesses, Mr. Addison had hitherto traced, or fancied he traced, a noble, generous, affectionate nature, strong and noble enough to struggle at last through all temptations; but what more ignoble, or ungenerous than the nature exhibited here. He walked home perplexed and bewildered, and all the night long tossed about haunted by the forms of coming misery. Robert and Angela! married without love; with boundless means to feed his vices, and no attachment at home, no loving influence or strong respect to restrain him; a downward course, an end of misery. Strong as his love for Robert were the torturing fears that assailed him.

Before morning his resolve was taken. He would hasten to London and see with his own eyes, and decide by his own judgment, if anything could yet be done to prevent a great evil. He wrote a note to Mr. Vavasour to apprise him of his departure, simply saying that business called him away; and was making a few needful arrangements, when another messenger, sent by Mrs. Vavasour, summoned him to Audley Court, where his presence was much needed. The blow had fallen by other means.

With an aching heart Mr. Addison prepared to obey the summons. He was one of those who seem to live but to help and comfort others, but he had not the calmness of soul such ministers of comfort usually possess. The sight of sorrow, the sight of the grief of those he loved, no reflection, no philosophy, no time, no religion had taught him to endure. It was the business and the happiness of his life to be able to comfort, and yet there were times, and this day was one, when his very soul longed for the hour when there would be no more tears to wipe away. For one of his disposition a time of trial was at hand.

On arriving at Audley Court he was shown into Mr. Vavasour’s study, and there he found the father and mother alone. The very first glance made him quail and tremble. Mr. Vavasour was sitting, pale, calm, and stern, his head leaning back on his chair. It was an awful truth that that single glance revealed. His heart was broken. The time might be longer, might be shorter, but the fiat had gone forth, the blow was struck; there was death in his face.

Mr. Addison quailed as he received the impression, and then hastily glanced at Mrs. Vavasour, dreading to read a like conviction in her eyes; but he was in some degree re-assured by her apparent unconsciousness. Her lids were swollen with tears, but sorrow for her son and pleading for her son seemed to absorb her.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, stretching out her hand to him. “We have great need of you.”

“You have heard of Robert?” he said in reply.

“There, take these,” she cried, gathering together some letters that lay by her husband’s side, “and then give us what hope and comfort you can.”

“There is neither hope nor comfort to be given,” broke out the stern voice of Mr. Vavasour. “They have passed from my heart for ever. Yes, take those,” he continued passionately, “and learn what a son we have cherished in our bosoms.”

One letter was from the same old friend, Mr. Perceval, who, on a former occasion, had written about Robert’s concerns. It enclosed one from Mr. Low, Mr. Vavasour’s solicitor.

In this letter Mr. Low informed Mr. Perceval of several particulars regarding Robert’s conduct, which had come to his knowledge, and asked his advice about communicating them to Mr. Vavasour. He stated that he had heard of his arrival in London, and that he was living in obscurity, moving his lodgings from place to place, and concealing his return from his acquaintance; that on inquiry, he understood this conduct to be caused by his having lost large sums of money, and being much harassed by his debts. The letter went on to say, “The interest I have always taken in Mr. Robert Vavasour, and my conviction of the truth of what I have heard, has led me to trouble you on this occasion, though possibly I might have hesitated to interfere, when not especially called upon to do so, had it not been that from other circumstances, I believe no time should be lost in extricating him from his embarrassments.” Mr. Low then proceeded to inform Mr. Perceval that he had likewise heard, and he feared with too great truth, that Robert had of late acquired habits of intemperance, brought on he was convinced by distress of mind, and he urged upon him, not in the dry style of a solicitor, but as one whose heart like many others had been warmed and won by Robert’s charms, that the unfortunate young man should be snatched before it was too late, from the perilous course on which he had entered.

As Mr. Addison finished this letter he slowly raised his eyes, and almost started as he met the keen piercing gaze that was bent upon him by Mr. Vavasour. He understood it well. He felt what word it was whose shame and disgrace had struck, like a dagger’s point, into his very heart. Intemperance! That a Vavasour should thus degrade himself to the level of the beasts that perish.

Without a remark, Mr. Addison turned to the second letter. Mr. Low’s was dated a week backward. Mr. Perceval’s only two days before. He explained his delay in forwarding the enclosure by the desire he had felt to make more particular inquiries before such tidings were sent. Finding that substantially they were correct, he thought it best to let Mr. Vavasour know the worst without delay. He added, however, that he understood an improvement in his habits had of late taken place, owing to a pursuit in which Robert was at present engaged; a pursuit which, if crowned with success, would, he hoped, not only place him above his difficulties, but if all that was said of the lady in question was true, would probably ensure his domestic happiness, and recover him from the error of his ways. This fact had, he said, been communicated to him in confidence by his nephew, and he was not, therefore, at liberty to speak more clearly, but he trusted that the mere mention of these better hopes would, in a degree, soothe the pain he was forced to cause.

One word only alleviated the unspeakable sadness Mr. Addison felt in these tidings; and strange to say it was the very word that seemed to crush Mr. Vavasour to the earth. Intemperance. What but the mind’s agony could have driven Robert to a course he abhorred? and if the mind was capable of suffering so acutely there was the better nature living still; there was the heart too much opposed to evil, the conscience too tortured by the sense, of the pain he inflicted, to leave any ground for despair. As he thus reflected, he remembered Robert’s parting prayer, and replacing the letters by Mr. Vavasour’s side, he gravely said,

“Robert must not be condemned on hearsay; his own lips must speak. I will go to him.”

“Bless you for that,” cried Mrs. Vavasour, “and,” she continued, taking up Mr. Perceval’s letter, and pointing to the paragraph respecting Robert’s marriage, “prove this false or he will break our hearts.”

“They _are_ broken,” said Mr. Vavasour, sternly. “It is too late.”

“Not so,” was Mr. Addison’s soothing reply. “God accepts repentance, and man should never say it is too late.”

“There are things God’s mercy pardons that man cannot.”

“Shall man, then, be more just than God?” Mr. Addison asked, solemnly.

Mr. Vavasour clasped his hands in some mute emotion, but whether it was a vow or prayer could not be guessed.

In speaking with Mrs. Vavasour, Mr. Addison found that with instinctive dread her thoughts had flown to Angela; and since the tidings might at any moment, either through direct announcement or common gossip, fall on her ears, he thought it best, before his departure, to mention what he had heard at Underwood. Mrs. Vavasour wept bitterly, tears she vainly struggled to repress, but it was for the poor guilty Robert, not for Everard, that she wept; and who should say her tears were misplaced. Mr. Vavasour said not one word, but if a cheek that was already pale as death could be paler, his became so; and if the rigid sternness of his brow could admit of increase, his became more hard.

He did not speak during the remainder of the conversation between Mr. Addison and his wife, neither forbidding nor yet sanctioning the plans they formed; but when, before he left the room, the question arose whether Hope should be informed of all that was known and all that was dreaded, and when Mrs. Vavasour said with tears, “Let us spare her yet; God may yet shield her innocence from this trial,” he again broke harshly forth,

“She shall know all. Not for one hour longer shall she waste her heart upon a....”

Some word of fury was on his lips, but with clasped hands he restrained himself; and bowing his head, he gently and reverently added, “God have pity upon us all.”

Even had he deemed it himself advisable, Mr. Addison would not have attempted to argue with Mr. Vavasour in his present mood. He saw a fixed determination in his eye, and danger of exciting him if it were combated; but in truth he saw little to be gained by delay. The bond between Robert and Hope was already broken, and even should the event fail to take place, it was not with one of her character that concealment could be just. He offered himself, therefore, to perform the task.

He offered himself to spare Mrs. Vavasour the pain of the recital, and to spare Hope the agony of Mr. Vavasour’s harsher words. But it was a task of peculiar difficulty. He had needed no confession to tell him that a change had come over the affection which subsisted between Hope and Robert. He had seen Robert more than once struggling with his feelings, and he had seen in Hope’s eyes the dawn of something, which, if of earth, had no stain of earthliness about it. He had not needed what yet he had received, Mrs. Vavasour’s thankful assurance that such was the case. But though he knew, he had felt instinctively that the tie between them was too fragile to bear a touch; and though adviser, guide, and comforter, this touch which was to break, was the first that had ever ventured near the sacredness of her affection.

Hope was at work in her sitting room. She looked up as he entered, and fixing an earnest gaze on his face, saw, or thought she saw, what brought him; she perceived that the long expected hour was come, when she must walk with Robert through a dark valley; and with one sinking and trembling of her heart, she was prepared to meet it. For what else he had to tell little indeed was she prepared.

He came to her side and forced her to be seated, and then stooping tenderly over her, he put the letters into her hand, saying only as he did so, “There is much to grieve us all; but there are some things which more especially concern _you_. Dear Miss Linton be prepared,” and he gave her hand one of those agitated grasps, which tell so much of sympathy.

But even then, Hope was not prepared, nor even when she had perused the letter, did the truth it contained flash on her mind. It was a glance at Mr. Addison, and a second perusal that brought conviction, and then she slowly laid it down, and her head bent lower, and a flush of crimson stole over her cheek, and neck, and brow.

To a character like Hope’s, the sensations of such a moment had an added and unspeakable bitterness; for they brought not sorrow only, but self-knowledge. She had lived from childhood upwards, a life most like an angel’s, her heart in Heaven, while her business was on earth; nothing had yet taught her that she too was a child of Adam, compassed about with earthly passions, and earthly hopes and fears. It was the iron of the chain entering into her soul, that brought her to feel the links that bound her.

Mr. Addison waited long, and then gently laying his hand on her bended head, said, “God bless you and help you. I know you have need of help.”

She gave him her hand without looking up or speaking, and he held it while he told her as briefly as was possible, what more was needful, and what more she might wish to know. When he had done, perceiving plainly that at that moment no earthly comforter could speak peace to her troubled spirit, he again murmured his soft “God bless you,” and left her to solitude.

Her first act was a singular one; but it was one which showed how to her thoughtful nature outward forms were imbued with life. She loosened from her neck a chain and locket, which Robert had given her the evening before he left home for college; a token of affection and remembrance which since then had hung there night and day, loved and cherished; she held it for a moment and looked at it with an intense gaze, then slowly crossed the room, folded it in paper, and put it carefully by. When this was done, she threw herself on her knees, and buried her face in her hands; not for prayer, not for thought, not for confession, but to throw under the protection of God, thoughts and emotions, whose startling violence she knew not how to put into words, and thus mutely to express her resignation of herself to whatever might befall her.

And innocence is strong
And an entire simplicity of mind
A thing most sacred in the eye of Heaven.

Gradually the selfishness of her grief passed by, and reproaching herself, for so long forgetting a parent’s sorrow, she was springing up to go in search of her aunt, when she was prevented by Mrs. Vavasour’s entrance.

She was much agitated, and throwing her arms round Hope’s neck, she wept bitterly. Those tears she had so desired to conceal from her husband flowed here without restraint; and the reproaches against Robert, which she would have died before she had uttered in his presence, fell fast from her lips in the presence of her he had injured. Mrs. Vavasour was very human, and even years of self-restraint had failed to overcome the impetuosity of her feelings.

It was Hope who recalled her to herself. “Dear Aunt Joan,” she said, sadly, “who will speak for Robert, if you give him up?”

“Ah! who indeed,” she replied, composing herself with a pang of self-reproach. “But it is for your sake, Hope. When I think of you, even I can hardly forgive.”

Hope stood by her side with downcast eyes, and a colour coming and going as rapidly as Angela’s might have done. In many respects human beings strangely differ one from the other, but some things all feel alike. However bravely, or however holily borne, the strongest or the most saintlike know what it is to be forsaken or forgotten. At last she raised her eyes and said with grave composure. “I think it is very possible that I may have thought more of Robert’s words than I ought to have done, or if not that,” for the vividness of those words, and that scene, flashed before her to check the supposition “that he himself was too much excited to know all he said, or to remember it as I have remembered. But be this as it may, dear Aunt Joan, it is not for _us_ to forsake him. He is sorely tempted, but he will not be lost. He has a good soul, and that cannot be lost.” She clasped her hands with passionate fervour, as she spoke her intense conviction regarding him.

“Will you, indeed, never forsake him or cease to pray for him, Hope?” her aunt asked, laying her hand on her arm, and looking anxiously in her face.

Hope turned away her eyes, for that question brought the conviction hitherto unrealized, that he would be her charge no longer; that another might stand nearer to him than she had ever yet done or ever henceforward could do. It was a conviction of such piercing anguish that it kept her for a moment silent; but when she answered, it was in the same grave but tranquil manner in which for his sake she had spoken before. “I think Robert should never know that there has been a change. A few months need not wipe out whole years of life. What I have been, all but a few thoughts, I think I may still be. And now, dear Aunt Joan, think of me no more, let us think, and hope, and pray for him.”

Mrs. Vavasour fondly kissed her, and her request was obeyed. Except from their inner hearts, that portion of their grief seemed to be swept away.

Mr. Vavasour did not even mention Robert’s name again. Mr. Low came down from London at his summons, and with him he entered fully into the subject, hearing from him all that could be told, and entering with him into arrangements for the future. But to his wife and Hope he was absolutely dumb.

Mrs. Vavasour made no attempt to break his silence. His harsh speeches wrung her heart, and, for the first time, she had no excuses to bring forward. Her passionate love for her son was in no degree shaken, but she recoiled from the past, and trembled for the future, and dared not palliate, and dared not hope.

For three days Hope was also silent. She too shrank from his harsh words, and feared lest the thoughts connected with _her_, should provoke them anew. But after three days she could bear this silence no longer. There was a fixed look in his face which made her tremble as she watched it, a look almost as if he were cursing Robert in his heart.

On the third day she went to him and put her arms round his neck, and said, “Uncle Richard, you have not forgiven Robert. I see in your face that you do not forgive. You must. Oh! Uncle Richard, it is a fearful thing not to forgive.”

He looked at her intently, and remained for a time,--it seemed to her like many minutes,--in profound silence and reflection. Hope waited--watching and hoping to see a softening in his countenance; but in vain. There was no change there.

At last he spoke gravely and solemnly. “I was examining myself, my child. I would not lightly say that I did forgive. But I can say it now. I do forgive him.” He paused, then suddenly seizing both her hands, continued with violent agitation, “And Hope, my child, if it should be so ordained that I see Robert no more, let him know this; let him never doubt it; _I forgive him_. He has the full forgiveness of the father whose heart he has broken, as I hope God will forgive me.” He dropped her hands, and covered his face for an instant with his own; but after that instant was calm and rigid as before.

Hope kissed his brow, and softly thanked him.

As she was moving away he caught her hand once more and said, “Not till I am _dead_, Hope, not till I am dead.”

“Are you ill, dear Uncle Richard--do you feel ill?” she cried, hanging tearfully over him.

“My heart is broken,” he said; “God’s will be done.” And he waved his hand as if desirous to be left to himself.