Chapter VIII

Hear the very latest counsel
That ever I shall breathe.
_King Henry the Fourth._

A considerable time elapsed before the violence of Robert’s grief could be mastered. It took the form of an hysterical passion evidently beyond his powers to subdue, springing no doubt in a great measure from the unnerved condition in which his late habits had left him.

It gave place at last to exhaustion; he seemed as weak as a child, and he submitted like a child to go to bed. When this was accomplished, the room was darkened, and Mrs. Vavasour sat down by his side to watch over him. Robert opened his eyes and saw her there; and, as if forgetting all that had passed, held out his hand to her with a faint sweet smile; and having so done he dropped asleep with hers clasped in his. It was like the days of infancy once more, and Mr. Addison, who was standing by, turned away at the sight with tears he could no longer restrain. Who could wonder at the love the mother bore to her poor prodigal son?

When he left the room he found Hope watching outside. He desired her to go and lie down, and husband her powers for the time when they might be wanted. She had been up and standing the whole of the night before, and she looked, though she did not seem, worn out.

She went in obedience to his advice, and he then turned his steps in search of Everard; but on his way to Everard’s room so many questions and inquiries assailed him, so many necessary delays occurred, that it was above an hour and a half since Mr. Vavasour’s death before he reached him.

On approaching the door he met a housemaid, an elderly woman who had been long in the family, coming from it.

“How is Mr. Everard?” he inquired, stopping her as she was passing with her apron to her eyes.

“He’s come to a bit, poor dear,” she replied, “but he’s been terribly bad. Mr. Everard always was so uncommonly fond of his papa.”

“Has Mr. Everard been ill?” Mr. Addison asked, with a pang of self-reproach, although mortal powers of comforting are limited as other things.

“He passed me by when he came to his room with such a white face, sir, that I made bold to go after him, and I found him on the floor, poor dear, with his heart going like a mill-wheel. But he told me to give no trouble and say nothing about it, and he’s come to now a bit. I made him lie down, and I took him some tea just now, and he seems more composed and like himself, poor dear,” and with a curtsey she hastened on her way.

With an added fear lest Everard should have thought himself neglected, Mr. Addison went on. In a small degree his watchful eyes had discovered that this was sometimes the case; but even he had no conception of the keenness with which the lack of warm affection was felt. It was in fact a grief which none but the one who suffered from it could understand. The outward forms of affection, the care and thought, were, though calm, so kind and constant that it was only the heart itself which pined for a quicker pulse of love in answer to its own, which could be aware of the one thing wanting.

He knocked at the door, but entered without waiting for an answer, and approached the bed. The room was already darkened, in token of death in the house, but the bright April evening shone through the openings and gave light enough for observation.

Mr. Addison was struck by the look of abandonment to sorrow in the usually composed countenance, and the lassitude in the usually vigorous frame. Everard did raise himself on his approach, and say he would get up, but when he gently touched him and said, “No, lie down again,” he obeyed without a word of remonstrance.

“I could not get to you before,” he began in a tone of tender affection. “How are you, my poor Everard?”

“How are they all?” he asked in reply, looking wistfully into his face.

“All quiet now, and Hope and Robert are lying down. Poor Robert has been terribly overcome. We cannot wonder. He has his own keen pangs of sorrow, which nothing else can equal. Happy, dear Everard, those who are spared them.”

“And my mother?” Everard said, without heeding those words of consolation.

“She is sitting by Robert,” Mr. Addison replied, after a momentary hesitation. “He greatly needs her care, and at this moment, Everard, I feel almost thankful it should be so. The sun of her life is gone out, and were it not for this anxiety, she might scarcely have strength to live on.”

Everard turned away his eyes; but if the thought of what Robert was to his mother gave him pain, it was a longing not an envious pain.

“Everard,” Mr. Addison said, stooping over him, “I have come last to you, because you are the strongest; but do not think I am not well aware that in some respects, this loss is more to you than to all the world beside.”

“Do not restrain yourself too much,” he continued, perceiving that Everard clenched his hands to control his emotion. “Grief should and must have its way. I will not speak if it grieves you too much, but if you can bear it, there are some things I would say.”

“You said that I felt already too much,” Everard replied passionately. “Oh! Mr. Addison, I know I am selfish to think it, but I feel that I have lost all; in all the world there was but one who cared for me, and he is gone. What is life now? What have I to live for? I know I am selfish--I hate myself for what I say, and yet I feel it still. I am desolate.”

“It may be selfish, dear Everard, but do not blame yourself too severely; in some respects grief makes us selfish, and is intended to do so, for it teaches us to search and look into our hearts. I wish to use it for that purpose now. Let us see what this sorrow says to you. I think it has a message for you. Can you bear to hear me?”

Everard looked gratefully up into the face of his old friend, already soothed by the soft touch of his kind words.

“It seems hardly a fitting time to preach a sermon,” he said, with a faint smile on his lips, “but what I have to say, Everard, may, I think, bring a word in season to your weary heart. You ask, ‘what have you to live for now?’ Dear Everard, I do but repeat some words already spoken this day, when I say ‘You have been a good son.’ You have made your father’s will the guide of your life. Do not think that I have a fault to find in that. I so loved your devotion, that even though I saw a want, I feared to disturb it by a single word of advice; but now, Everard, when that guide has been taken from you, I would partly in comfort, partly in warning, point your thoughts upward to your father in Heaven; a Guide and Friend that cannot fail or pass away. Everard,” he continued, after a moment, with emphasis and solemnity, looking fixedly at him, “Your future life may be very different to your past; strong temptations may be before you, heavy cares oppress you; if you would walk safely under them, safely, and as your father would have you walk, you must make the will of God your guide, and His grace the support of your life. I will add no more; but, dear Everard, in these days of seclusion and sorrow, think upon what I say.”

“I know you are right,” Everard sadly said; “very right. I am not in that way which I should be. I will try to remember; and yet,” he added, after some consideration, “I feel now that if I _had_ made my father my only guide, I should be less wretched now--but you do not know;--all these past months, oh! Mr. Addison, you do not know what a place my mind has been. Not my father, my dear father there, but vain, mean, worthless thoughts and motives, and other loves and cares, and few thoughts of him have filled it. Oh! Mr. Addison, if all were known, I have _not_ been a good son.”

“You are unjust, and needlessly torment yourself,” Mr. Addison said soothingly; “there may have been, it was but natural there should have been, a noise of many voices in your heart; but I know, and you know it too, one word from your father, had he spoken, would have silenced them all. No word was ever truer, Everard, than that you heard to-day: ‘_You have been a good son._’ Take the comfort God gives you home to your heart, and be thankful for it. To have been a good son is no light blessing--a father’s blessing follows such a one all his days, and come what may, dear Everard, will follow you.”

He bent over him, and laid his cool hand on his burning brow, putting back the masses of his disordered hair with a soft touch, like a mother’s; and the act of gentle and womanly tenderness went to the heart of the desolate son, and he left him comforted.

For the three days that followed Mr. Vavasour’s death, Robert was confined to bed. He was seriously ill. The cold which had attacked his throat returned more violently, and excitement of mind produced fever of body.

During those days Mrs. Vavasour never left him. She watched beside him by day, she slept on a sofa in his room at night. When he once observed to her that he was sure there were some Psalms and prayers which were fit for such a one as he was to use, she commanded her trembling voice, and read to him. For the time being, he seemed to fill all her mind. But when after the third day he recovered, she fell back into that trance of speechless sorrow, from which her care for him alone had had power to rouse her.

The tables were then reversed. Robert devoted himself to her--happy if only he could force a tear from her tearless eyes; consoled if he could draw one word from her lips.

During Robert’s illness, Everard and Hope had been left to themselves. They did, indeed, go in and out of the darkened room, but both alike felt that there was a sacredness of union there, their presence jarred upon. Robert asked for neither. His mother was all in all.

They were three miserable days. Hope saw that the link that had united her and Robert was indeed severed; and in the severing discovered how dear, too dear, that link had been; how dark was earth--yes, and heaven, too, now _that_ union was not. Her days were days of one long prayer--such prayer as gains the thing it fain would have.

With Everard they were passed by the side of the inanimate form he had loved so well, and with whom all that made life bearable seemed vanished. Darkness was on his weary heart in the present and in the future, and though in the very sight of death, his thoughts did in a degree lose their earthliness, and he did in a degree follow the counsel of his old friend, and strive to seek a guide and support in Heaven; yet it is not at once that such thoughts become natural inmates of the mind, much less comforters. Animated with religious principles, Everard had always been; but from the formation of his mind and character--a character strong, stubborn, and earthly, he had been less susceptible than even Robert of religious feeling Mr. Addison had long seen the want; yet, as he had said, had scarcely dared to point it out, lest he should disturb that other principle which guided him so safely on his way.

The last days of the week brought a comfort to Hope they could not give to Everard. In their cares of Mrs. Vavasour, Robert and Hope were again united. They were rarely alone together, and if it chanced to happen that they were alone, no word regarding that which had made a change between them was ever spoken; but, as if blotting out the days of that last return home, during the whole of which, however unconsciously, Robert had been perpetually seeking to awaken her to love him, they returned to the tranquil, confiding intercourse of earlier days. A change there was, and Hope felt it, and yet was content.

To some it might have been hardly possible to bear the change; to some it might have been impossible so to put self and consciousness aside, as to turn back her steps to a former from a nearer and closer union; but with Hope it was possible--she knew how to win a victory over self, and she won it.

Everard would have shared their cares if he could. He, too, approached his mother and kissed her, and longed, till his heart seemed bursting, to put his arms round her to implore her to love him, and to let his love comfort her as they did; but he dared not. His tongue was tied by the dread of a cold response, and he was silent.

The day of the funeral came and passed.

When Everard left his room the following morning the sun was shining brilliantly through the now opened windows; there were sounds of voices no longer hushed, and footsteps no longer stealthy, in the gardens and about the house; all things seemed to be resuming their usual course, and life and light to have returned to the dwelling from which the inner light and life had just departed.

Sorrow is not always soft; nor a true mourning always faultless. Sorrow has its infirmities as well as, nay, much more than, joy. As Everard paced along the corridors, outwardly so bright, so dreary to him, his feelings were much like Jonah’s over the withering of his gourd; he was angry, and thought he did well to be angry. He had a strange jealous feeling that others were forgetting, that none were mourning like him, and in bitterness of spirit he said he would escape from his unbearable misery, and return to his toilsome life in London.

In this mood he entered the breakfast room; and on such a mood a very trifling circumstance jars with acute pain. Robert and Hope were there before him. From the lingering effects of his illness, Robert had hitherto breakfasted late and in his room; but he was there this morning; the room looked bright and fresh; the windows were open, letting in the sweet breeze of a May morning, and Robert was in his father’s chair and place.

There was nothing to surprise in this; for there were but three places at the table, and Robert’s mind was not of the kind which thoughtfully dwells on minute things; but to those whose minds were of another class it did speak. It did forcibly say--a change is come, yet life flows on unchanged; one generation gone, another era begun; a father dead, a son already in his place; a father, in his venerable and virtuous old age, and _Robert_ in his place.

A torrent of impetuous, rebellious blood crimsoned Everard’s cheek, and he sat down, scarcely knowing what he said or did. Perhaps Robert observed his countenance, perhaps guessed in part what feelings agitated him, for he immediately leant towards him, and put a letter into his hand, observing in a low voice, “That is this afternoon. I will go down and tell Mr. Addison that he is to be here.”

The letter was from Mr. Low, the solicitor. It informed Robert that Mr. Vavasour’s will was in his hands, and that he had received a special charge to read it in the presence of the assembled family, (not excepting Mrs. Vavasour, if she could be prevailed on to comply with her husband’s request), and of Mr. Addison. He added that Mr. Vavasour had specified the day following his funeral for the reading of the will, and, therefore, without waiting to hear from Robert, he should be at Audley Court at four o’clock.

This information and Robert’s manner put Everard’s _most_ miserable thoughts to flight. There was something yet to be heard from, or done for his father. The day was to be full of him; and the jealous dread that he was forgotten, for the time was gone.

He thought no more of his purpose of escape, and for the mere benefit of finding something to do, walked down with Robert to desire Mr. Addison to be at Audley Court at the appointed hour.

Mr. Addison gave a grave consent, looking fixedly at each brother; but they too were grave, and expected nothing but gravity, and his looks excited no remark.

On their return, as they approached the house, the butler came to meet Robert, and asked him if he chose to have the bells rung as usual for dinner and other things.

“Yes--no,” Robert replied, colouring crimson, and averting his eyes from Everard. “I don’t care, just as you think best.”

“I think it would be best. It secures punctuality,” observed the butler, with some importance in offering advice to his young master.

“Just as you please,” Robert said, hastily, and then as the man departed, he turned to Everard and exclaimed--“Oh! Everard, how I hate it all.”

“You must,” said his brother, passionately. “I feel how you must.”

“Don’t _you_ hate me, that is all.”

“No, indeed,” Everard said warmly, and those few words of Robert’s blew away into airy nothing, the strange sad feeling that had made his heart ache that day, when he thought of Robert in his father’s place; blew it away, and brought love, trust, and even reverence in its place.

* * * * *

Mr. Low arrived punctually. Mrs. Vavasour unwilling to refuse compliance with the smallest wish expressed by her husband, forced herself to obedience; and the room was darkened, and a chair placed for her in the darkest corner; and to her chair she was led by Robert when the hour came, with Hope by her side.

“Now call him!” Robert said hurriedly to Everard, “and let there be no delay.”

Everard left the room.

As he came up the stairs with the solicitors, Mr. Low looked at him and said, “Have you any idea, Mr. Everard, as to the contents of your father’s will?”

“No, none!” he said with a kind of sad indifference.

“I think it may surprise you.”

Everard shook his head. He thought it possible Mr. Low intended to suggest that a better provision had been made for him than he had reason to expect; and _once_ such a suggestion would have been no matter of indifference; but in the cloud that had now darkened his future, utter indifference as to his prospects had grown up.

He forgot Mr. Low’s remark as soon as it was made, and recurred to what was upper-most in his mind; the hope that he would make the affair as little painful to his mother as was possible.

“I will do my best,” said Mr. Low, “but some things unfortunately are not in my power to....”

“Of course,” Everard said hastily, “I know, only let it be as short as you can.”

Mr. Low bowed as he entered the room, but kindly and discreetly refrained from any further notice of Mrs. Vavasour.

He then sat down, giving his companion a paper to hold, and desired Robert and Everard to sit on each side of him.

They obeyed, and pale and grave Mr. Addison placed himself in the window.

Mr. Low then proceeded to read a will made ten years before this time. It contained a few bequests, left a sum of ten thousand pounds to Everard, and the whole of the rest of the property to Robert.

When he had finished reading, Mr. Low turned to Robert and said, “This will remained unaltered in my hands till about ten days ago; I regret to be compelled to add that since then an alteration has taken place. On the 22nd of April I was summoned from London, and in my presence, and in the presence of this gentleman, a new will was made and signed. I am compelled, Mr. Vavasour, though with great reluctance, to read it to you.”

In the second will there was simply a change in the bequests to his two sons. Where Robert stood now was Everard, and Robert in Everard’s place. But the conclusion was couched in most solemn words. The cause of the change was distinctly stated to arise from the unworthiness of his elder son, and though there was no concealment of the pain which his resolution cost, there was no faltering in the terms in which that resolution was expressed. Then followed a few words to “his dear son Robert,” assuring him of his unaltered affection, his full pardon, and his dying blessing.

To Everard also there was a special address, and at greater length. Into his hand Mr. Vavasour said he delivered all the cares which had occupied him through life. Some things were specified by name. He appointed him guardian to Hope Linton, and very solemnly committed to “his integrity, judgment, and affection,” the care of the welfare and happiness of the three beloved beings he left behind him. Lastly, he alluded to Everard’s new position, and no words could be imagined more forcible and pathetic than those in which he implored him to accept, and not to cast away, this his last will and testament.

Mr. Low’s thin, sharp voice deepened into pathos as he concluded, and agitated in an unusual degree, he drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and blew his nose. This was the only sound that broke the silence either during the reading or after its conclusion. Both sons remained with their eyes downcast; Robert’s cheek was crimson, Everard’s ashy pale.

Mr. Low looked at them alternately, then at Mrs. Vavasour’s motionless form. He seemed perplexed how to act.

“I believe my task is done,” at last he observed, slowly rising from his seat, and bowing where he stood, while he rustled the papers in his hand.

Robert sprang up and shook hands with him; Everard remained immoveable.

“I must wish you good evening,” Mr. Low observed again, and having repeated his bow to Everard, in which his companion joined, but of which no notice was taken, they left the room together.

“Take me back,” Mrs. Vavasour faintly said to Hope, and, putting her arms round her, as if to support herself, she also rose, and attempted to depart; but her limbs trembled so much that Hope’s support seemed scarcely sufficient, and Robert hastening after her, caught her arm, forced her to lean on him, and so guided her away.

When the door closed, Mr. Addison made a few steps towards Everard, who still sat immoveable; but at the very first sound, Everard started up with a cheek like death, and eyes flashing like fire, and flew out of the room by the door which had just closed on Mr. Low.

Mr. Addison returned to the window, opened the shutters that had darkened it, and leaned out and sighed. He stood there in profound meditation, the fresh air cooling and calming his mind, until he was roused by the re-entrance of Robert.

“I say, Mr. Addison, you must go to my mother,” he said quickly, as he approached him; “she is in a sad way, and nothing I can say or do will comfort her. Go in at once; that will be the best; if you ask to go in she will not see you.”

There was a tone in Robert’s voice, and a look on his countenance which seemed to imply a desire of braving it out with a show of indifference. It made Mr. Addison uneasy; but, at the same time, it told him that this would not be the proper moment to make observations or offer sympathy or counsel. Without commenting, therefore, on what had passed, he merely thanked Robert for summoning him, and acquiesced in his request.

He left the room by one door; Robert left it by the other, coolly fetched his hat, and went out for a walk.