A Country Gentleman and His Family · Chapter 51 (1/2)

LI

Warrender had a long conference with Dick Cavendish in the old library at the Warren. Mr. Wilberforce, who had been sent for, came at once, full of curiosity and excitement; and though Mr. Longstaffe could not be had, the experience of the two clergymen, who knew all about marriage registers and the proofs that were necessary, was of use in this curious family crisis. It was all very important both to Chatty and to the family in general, and Theo did his utmost to keep his attention to it, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was glad to be released, when all was done that could be done by the little family commission. The result was a kind of compromise. No one had any moral doubt that Dick was right, but some higher sanction seemed to be necessary before he could be allowed to take Chatty away. The ladies had to be called in to soothe and subdue his impetuosity, to get him to consent to delay. Warrender scarcely waited to see how it was settled. The impatience within him was not to be controlled. His heart was at Markland, hot with anger and anxiety, while he was forced to remain here and talk of other things. Yes, to be sure, Chatty’s good name, her happiness⁠—if she considered that her happiness lay in that⁠—were important. It was important for Cavendish too, if anyone cared what was important for Cavendish: but good heavens! not so important⁠—could anyone suppose so for a moment?⁠—as what had happened, what might be happening, elsewhere. Old Joseph had stopped him as he went through the hall to tell him that the little lord had run off and got on his pony, and had gone home. He had gone home. It was a relief for one thing, for Theo had felt that it would be impossible for him to carry that little demon back with him in the dogcart, as it would have been his duty to do. But in another⁠—how could he tell what might be happening while he was kept there, amid maddening delays and hesitations, looking over Dick Cavendish’s papers? What could Dick Cavendish’s papers matter? A few days sooner or later, what could it matter to Dick Cavendish? Whereas to himself⁠—That boy might be lying senseless on the road, for anything he knew; or, what was worse, he might have got home and told his story. And the sting was that he had a story to tell.

Warrender knew that he had done what he ought not to have done. He had treated the child with a violence which he knew to be unmanly. He had thrown him down, and stunned, and might have killed him. He did not deny to himself what he had done. He would not deny it to her⁠—and he fully expected that she would meet him with upbraidings, with anger. With anger! when it was he who was the injured person⁠—he, her husband, whose privacy was constantly disturbed and all his rights invaded by her son. He turned this over and over in his mind, adding to the accumulation of his wrongs, till they mounted to a height which was beyond bearing. The fire blazed higher and higher as he kept on throwing in fuel to the flames. It must come to some decision, he said to himself. It was contrary not only to his happiness, but to his dignity, his just position, to let it go on, to be tormented perpetually by this little Mordecai at the gate, this child who was made of more importance than he was, who had to be thought of, and have his wishes consulted, and the supposed necessities of his delicate health made so much of. Geoff’s generosities, the constant sacrifices of which he was conscious, were all lost upon his stepfather. He knew nothing of the restraint the child put on himself, or of the wistful pain with which Lady Markland looked on, divining more than she knew. All that was a sealed book to Theo. From his side of the question Geoff was an offence on every point. Why should he be called upon to endure that interloper always in sight⁠—never to feel master in his own house? To be sure, Markland was not his house, but Geoff’s; but that was only a grievance the more, for he had not wished to live in Markland, while his own house stood ready for his own family, with plenty of room for his wife and children. There grew upon Warrender’s mind a great resolution, or, rather, there started up in his thoughts, like the prophet’s gourd, a determination, that this unendurable condition of affairs should exist no longer. Why should he be bound to Geoff, in whose presence he felt he was not capable of doing himself justice, who turned him the wrong way invariably, and made him look like a hot-tempered fool, which he was not? No, he would not endure it longer. Frances must be brought to see that for the sake of her son her husband was not always to be sacrificed. It should not continue. The little girls must not grow up to see their father put in the second place, to think him an irritable tyrant. No, it must not continue, not for a day.

And there occurred to Theo, when he approached the gate of Markland, something like the same experience which had befallen Geoff. He saw going slowly along the bare avenue two figures, clinging closely together⁠—as he had seen them a hundred times, though never without jealousy, when he had no right to interfere. For a long time these walks had been intermitted, and he had almost forgotten the irritation of the past in this respect. But now it all surged back with an exasperation entirely out of proportion to the offence. For the offence was no more than this: that Lady Markland was walking slowly along, with Geoff clinging with both hands to her arm, clasping it, with his head almost on her shoulder, with a sort of proprietorship which made the spectator frantic. He stopped the dogcart and sprang down, flinging the reins to the groom outside of the gate. The sight brought his resolution, his rage, the fierce passion within him, to a climax. Yes, he had been anticipated; that was clear. The story of all that had passed had been poured into his wife’s ear. She would meet him with reproaches, perhaps with tears, pointing to the cut on her son’s forehead. There came into Theo’s mind a maddening recollection that he himself had been cut on the forehead for Geoff; but no one, not she at least, would remember that now. She would meet him furious, like a tigress for her cub; or, worse, she would meet him magnanimous, forgiving him, telling him that she knew it must have been an accident⁠—whereas it was no accident. He would make no pretence; he would allow that he had done it, he would allow that he had meant to do it; he would make no further pretences, and tolerate no pretences from this day.

In his anger he was as swift and light as a deer. Their backs were turned towards him, and they were too much absorbed in their talk to hear his approach. He was close to them, on Lady Markland’s other side, before they heard anything. The mother and son looked up simultaneously, and started as if they were but one being. At the sight of him she gave a faint cry⁠—“Theo!”⁠—and he unclasped her arm and slid from her in a moment: which, though it was what he wished, made the fire burn still higher in Warrender’s heart.

“So,” he said, with the harsh laugh of excited temper, “he has been telling you his story. I knew he would.”

“He has been telling me no story, Theo,” said Lady Markland. “Oh yes, he has been telling me that Mr. Cavendish⁠—”

“Confound Mr. Cavendish! I am speaking of your boy, Lady Markland. He has been telling you about the cut on his forehead.”

She looked from the man to the child, growing pale. “He fell,” she said faltering. “But he says it does not hurt.”

“The little liar!” cried Theo, in his excitement. “Why didn’t you tell your mother the truth?”

“Warrender!” said little Geoff, in a tone which conveyed such a warning as Theo would not have taken from any man in the excited state of his mind. The child was red with sudden indignation, but still he held fast to his part.

“Geoff, run away home!” cried his mother, trembling. “Nurse will bathe it for you: and papa,”⁠—she had ventured to call her young husband by this name since the birth of the babies⁠—“will give me his arm.”

“I tell you he is a little liar,” said Theo again. “He did not fall. I threw him down. He thrust himself into the midst of my family affairs, a meddling little fool, and I caught hold of him and threw him out of the way. It is best that you should know the truth.”

They stood all three in the middle of the bare road, the afternoon sun throwing its level light into their eyes⁠—looking at each other, confronting each other, standing apart.

“Theo,” said Lady Markland, “I am sure you did not mean to hurt him. It was⁠—an accident, after all. And Geoff, I am sure, never meant to interfere. But, indeed, you must not use such words of my boy.”

“What words would you like me to use? He is the pest of my existence. I want you to understand this once for all. I cannot go on in this way, met at every turn by a rival, an antagonist. Yes, he is my rival in your heart, he is my opponent in everything. I cannot turn round at my own table, in my own house, without his little grinning face⁠—” Here Theo stopped, with a still harsher laugh. The startled faces of the mother and son, the glance they gave at each other like a mutual consultation, the glow of indignation that overcame Lady Markland’s paleness, were all apparent to him in a flash of meaning. “Oh, I know what you will say!” he cried. “It is not my house; it is Geoff’s. A woman has no right to subject her husband to such a humiliation. Get your things together, Frances, and come with me to my own house. I am in a false position here. I will have it no longer. Let him have what is his right. I am resolved that he and I shall not sleep again under the same roof.”

“Theo, you cannot mean what you say. You can’t be so⁠—If Geoff has done anything wrong, he will beg your pardon. Oh, what is it, what is it?” She did not ask her son for his version of the story with her lips, but she did with her eyes, which exasperated Theo more and more.

“It does not matter what it is,” he said. “It is not any temporary business, to be got over with an apology. It is just this, that you won’t face what is inevitable. And it is inevitable. You must choose between him and me.”

Geoff had been overwhelmed by this sudden storm. He was so young to play the hero’s part. He was not above crying when such a tempest burst upon him, and had hard ado to keep back his tears. But when he met his mother’s anguished imploring look, Geoff felt in his little forlorn heart a courage which was more than man. “Warrender,” he said, biting his lips to keep them from quivering⁠—“Warrender, I say. As soon as the holidays are over, I⁠—I’ll go to school. I’ll⁠—be out of the way.”

“Oh, Geoff!” Lady Markland said, with a heartrending cry.

“It’s⁠—it’s right enough, mamma; it’s⁠—quite right. I’m too old. I’m too⁠—Warrender, I’ll be going back to school in about six weeks.” Alas, the holidays were just begun. “Won’t that do?” said little Geoff, with horrible twitchings of his face, intended to keep back the tears.

His mother went up to him, and kissed him passionately, and put him away with her hand. “Go,” she said. “Geoff, go, and wait for me in your room. We must talk⁠—alone; we must talk alone. Go. Go.”

Geoff would have given much to throw himself into her arms, to support and to be supported by her: but the child was moved beyond himself. He obeyed her without a word, turning his back upon the combat, though he would fain have stood by her in it. Warrender had taken no part in this; he had made no response to Geoff’s appeal. He was walking up and down with all the signs of impatience, pale with passion and opposition. He paused, however, as the boy went away, a solitary forlorn little figure stealing along the avenue in silence, too dutiful even to look back. Lady Markland stood, too, and looked after him, with a pang of compunction, of compassion, of heart-yearning, which it would be impossible to put into words. Her boy! who had been her chief, almost only companion for years; who was more dear⁠—was he more dear?⁠—than anyone; who was her very own, all her own, with no feeling in his mind or experience in his little consciousness that was not all hers⁠—and this man bade her send him away, separate from her child: this⁠—man. It is not safe for a union when one of the parties thinks of the other as that man. All at once a light had flashed up in Lady Markland’s heart. She had been made very soft, very submissive, by her marriage. She had married a young man, younger than herself. She had seemed to herself ever since to be asking pardon of him and of the world for doing so. But now his violence had called her back to herself. She had not been too soft or submissive in the old days. She had been a woman with a marked character, not always yielding. The temporary seemed suddenly to disappear out of her life, and the original came back. She stood for a moment looking after her child, and then, being feeble of body, though waking up to such force of mind, she went to a bench which stood on the edge of the road, and sat down there. “If this is as you say, it is better that we should understand each other,” she said.

Her tone had changed. From the anxiety to soften and smooth everything, the constant strain of deprecation and apology which had become habitual to her, she had suddenly emerged into a composure which was ominous, which was almost tragic. Even the act of sitting down, which was due to her weakness, made her appear as if taking a high position, assuming an almost judicial place. She did not intend it so, but this was the effect it produced upon Warrender, stinging him more deeply still. He felt that he was judged, that his wife had thrown off the yoke which he had made so heavy, and that his chance of bringing her back to her subjection, and of forcing her into the new and sudden decision which he called for, was small. This conviction increased his fury, but it also made him restrain the outward signs of it. He went after her, and stood in front of the bench of which she had made a sort of judicial throne.

“You are right in that,” he said. “Things have gone too far to return to their old level. I must have my house to myself, and for that reason it must be my own. I wish you to come with me to the Warren⁠—the children and you.”

“Your mother and your sisters are there,” she said, fixing upon him a steady look.

“What does that matter? There is room, I hope, at all times for the master of the house.”

“You ask me,” she said, “to turn all my life upside down, to change my habits and arrangements, at a moment’s notice. But you have not told me why. Have you told me? You have said that my little boy of twelve has offended you, and that you knocked him down. Is that why I must change my house, and all my life?”

The slow steadiness of her tone made him frantic; that, more than the deliberate way in which she was putting him in the wrong.

“I have told you,” he cried, “that I am in a false position altogether, and that I will not bear it any longer! You ought to see that I am in a false position. As for your little boy⁠—of twelve⁠—”

“What of him?” she asked, growing very pale, and rising again from her seat.

“Only this one thing, Frances: that you can’t serve God and mammon, you know; you can’t keep both. You must choose between him and me.”

“Choose!” She sat down again suddenly, as if her strength had failed her. “Choose! between Geoff, my little Geoff⁠—my boy⁠—my baby⁠—Geoff⁠—”

There was a kind of ridicule in her voice, a ridicule which was tragic, which was full of passion, which sounded like a scoff at something preposterous, as well as an indignant protest.

“Your scorn does not make it different. Yes, Geoff, who is all that: and me⁠—between him and me.”