"It will be sure to creep out; won"t it, Mrs. Morton?"
"Quite sure. Indeed, ma"am, it is impossible. Mr. Morton is so very respectable, and his neighbours pay so much attention to all he does; and then, if we have an election in the autumn, you see, ma"am, he has a great stake in the place, and is a public character."
"That"s neither here nor there," said Mr. Morton. "But I say, Catherine, can your little boy go into the other room for a moment? Margaret, suppose you take him and make friends."
Delighted to throw on her husband the burden of explanation, which she had originally meant to have all the importance of giving herself in her most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers into the boy"s hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the bedroom, left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with more tact and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to soften to Catherine the hard ship of the separation he urged. He dwelt princ.i.p.ally on what was best for the child. Boys were so brutal in their intercourse with each other. He had even thought it better represent Philip to Mr. Plaskwith as a more distant relation than he was; and he begged, by the by, that Catherine would tell Philip to take the hint.
But as for Sidney, sooner or later, he would go to a day-school--have companions of his own age--if his birth were known, he would be exposed to many mortifications--so much better, and so very easy, to bring him up as the lawful, that is the legal, offspring of some distant relation.
"And," cried poor Catherine, clasping her bands, "when I am dead, is he never to know that I was his mother?" The anguish of that question thrilled the heart of the listener. He was affected below all the surface that worldly thoughts and habits had laid, stratum by stratum, over the humanities within. He threw his arms round Catherine, and strained her to his breast:
"No, my sister--my poor sister-he shall know it when he is old enough to understand, and to keep his own secret. He shall know, too, how we all loved and prized you once; how young you were, how flattered and tempted; how you were deceived, for I know that--on my soul I do--I know it was not your fault. He shall know, too, how fondly you loved your child, and how you sacrificed, for his sake, the very comfort of being near him. He shall know it all--all--"
"My brother--my brother, I resign him--I am content. G.o.d reward you. I will go--go quickly. I know you will take care of him now."
"And you see," resumed Mr. Morton, re-settling himself, and wiping his eyes, "it is best, between you and me, that Mrs. Morton should have her own way in this. She is a very good woman--very; but it"s prudent not to vex her. You may come in now, Mrs. Morton."
Mrs. Morton and Sidney reappeared.
"We have settled it all," said the husband. "When can we have him?"
"Not to-day," said Mrs. Roger Morton; "you see, ma"am, we must get his bed ready, and his sheets well aired: I am very particular."
"Certainly, certainly. Will he sleep alone?--pardon me."
"He shall have a room to himself," said Mr. Morton. "Eh, my dear? Next to Martha"s. Martha is our parlourmaid--very good-natured girl, and fond of children."
Mrs. Morton looked grave, thought a moment, and said, "Yes, he can have that room."
"Who can have that room?" asked Sidney, innocently. "You, my dear,"
replied Mr. Morton.
"And where will mamma sleep? I must sleep near mamma."
"Mamma is going away," said Catherine, in a firm voice, in which the despair would only have been felt by the acute ear of sympathy,--"going away for a little time: but this gentleman and lady will be very--very kind to you."
"We will do our best, ma"am," said Mrs. Morton.
And as she spoke, a sudden light broke on the boy"s mind--he uttered a loud cry, broke from his aunt, rushed to his mother"s breast, and hid his face there, sobbing bitterly.
"I am afraid he has been very much spoiled," whispered Mrs. Roger Morton. "I don"t think we need stay longer--it will look suspicious.
Good morning, ma"am: we shall be ready to-morrow."
"Good-bye, Catherine," said Mr. Morton; and he added, as he kissed her, "Be of good heart, I will come up by myself and spend the evening with you."
It was the night after this interview. Sidney had gone to his new home; they had been all kind to him--Mr. Morton, the children, Martha the parlour-maid. Mrs. Roger herself had given him a large slice of bread and jam, but had looked gloomy all the rest of the evening: because, like a dog in a strange place, he refused to eat. His little heart was full, and his eyes, swimming with tears, were turned at every moment to the door. But he did not show the violent grief that might have been expected. His very desolation, amidst the unfamiliar faces, awed and chilled him. But when Martha took him to bed, and undressed him, and he knelt down to say his prayers, and came to the words, "Pray G.o.d bless dear mamma, and make me a good child," his heart could contain its load no longer, and he sobbed with a pa.s.sion that alarmed the good-natured servant. She had been used, however, to children, and she soothed and caressed him, and told him of all the nice things he would do, and the nice toys he would have; and at last, silenced, if not convinced, his eyes closed, and, the tears yet wet on their lashes, he fell asleep.
It had been arranged that Catherine should return home that night by a late coach, which left the town at twelve. It was already past eleven.
Mrs. Morton had retired to bed; and her husband, who had, according to his wont, lingered behind to smoke a cigar over his last gla.s.s of brandy and water, had just thrown aside the stump, and was winding up his watch, when he heard a low tap at his window. He stood mute and alarmed, for the window opened on a back lane, dark and solitary at night, and, from the heat of the weather, the iron-cased shutter was not yet closed; the sound was repeated, and he heard a faint voice. He glanced at the poker, and then cautiously moved to the window, and looked forth,--"Who"s there?"
"It is I--it is Catherine! I cannot go without seeing my boy. I must see him--I must, once more!"
"My dear sister, the place is shut up--it is impossible. G.o.d bless me, if Mrs. Morton should hear you!"
"I have walked before this window for hours--I have waited till all is hushed in your house, till no one, not even a menial, need see the mother stealing to the bed of her child. Brother, by the memory of our own mother, I command you to let me look, for the last time, upon my boy"s face!"
As Catherine said this, standing in that lonely street--darkness and solitude below, G.o.d and the stars above--there was about her a majesty which awed the listener. Though she was so near, her features were not very clearly visible; but her att.i.tude--her hand raised aloft--the outline of her wasted but still commanding form, were more impressive from the shadowy dimness of the air.
"Come round, Catherine," said Mr. Morton after a pause; "I will admit you."
He shut the window, stole to the door, unbarred it gently, and admitted his visitor. He bade her follow him; and, shading the light with his hand, crept up the stairs. Catherine"s step made no sound.
They pa.s.sed, unmolested, and unheard, the room in which the wife was drowsily reading, according to her custom before she tied her nightcap and got into bed, a chapter in some pious book. They ascended to the chamber where Sidney lay; Morton opened the door cautiously, and stood at the threshold, so holding the candle that its light might not wake the child, though it sufficed to guide Catherine to the bed. The room was small, perhaps close, but scrupulously clean; for cleanliness was Mrs. Roger Morton"s capital virtue. The mother, with a tremulous hand, drew aside the white curtains, and checked her sobs as she gazed on the young quiet face that was turned towards her. She gazed some moments in pa.s.sionate silence; who shall say, beneath that silence, what thoughts, what prayers moved and stirred!
Then bending down, with pale, convulsive lips she kissed the little hands thrown so listlessly on the coverlet of the pillow on which the head lay. After this she turned her face to her brother with a mute appeal in her glance, took a ring from her finger--a ring that had never till then left it--the ring which Philip Beaufort had placed there the day after that child was born. "Let him wear this round his neck," said she, and stopped, lest she should sob aloud, and disturb the boy. In that gift she felt as if she invoked the father"s spirit to watch over the friendless orphan; and then, pressing together her own hands firmly, as we do in some paroxysm of great pain, she turned from the room, descended the stairs, gained the street, and muttered to her brother, "I am happy now; peace be on these thresholds!" Before he could answer she was gone.
CHAPTER IX.
"Thus things are strangely wrought, While joyful May doth last; Take May in Time--when May is gone The pleasant time is past."--RICHARD EDWARDS.
From the Paradise of Dainty Devices.
It was that period of the year when, to those who look on the surface of society, London wears its most radiant smile; when shops are gayest, and trade most brisk; when down the thoroughfares roll and glitter the countless streams of indolent and voluptuous life; when the upper cla.s.s spend, and the middle cla.s.s make; when the ball-room is the Market of Beauty, and the club-house the School for Scandal; when the h.e.l.ls yawn for their prey, and opera-singers and fiddlers--creatures hatched from gold, as the dung-flies from the dung-swarm, and buzz, and fatten, round the hide of the gentle Public In the cant phase, it was "the London season." And happy, take it altogether, happy above the rest of the year, even for the hapless, is that period of ferment and fever. It is not the season for duns, and the debtor glides about with a less anxious eye; and the weather is warm, and the vagrant sleeps, unfrozen, under the starlit portico; and the beggar thrives, and the thief rejoices--for the rankness of the civilisation has superfluities clutched by all. And out of the general corruption things sordid and things miserable crawl forth to bask in the common sunshine--things that perish when the first autumn winds whistle along the melancholy city. It is the gay time for the heir and the beauty, and the statesman and the lawyer, and the mother with her young daughters, and the artist with his fresh pictures, and the poet with his new book. It is the gay time, too, for the starved journeyman, and the ragged outcast that with long stride and patient eyes follows, for pence, the equestrian, who bids him go and be d---d in vain. It is a gay time for the painted harlot in a crimson pelisse; and a gay time for the old hag that loiters about the thresholds of the gin-shop, to buy back, in a draught, the dreams of departed youth. It is gay, in fine, as the fulness of a vast city is ever gay--for Vice as for Innocence, for Poverty as for Wealth. And the wheels of every single destiny wheel on the merrier, no matter whether they are bound to Heaven or to h.e.l.l.
Arthur Beaufort, the young heir, was at his father"s house. He was fresh from Oxford, where he had already discovered that learning is not better than house and land. Since the new prospects opened to him, Arthur Beaufort was greatly changed. Naturally studious and prudent, had his fortunes remained what they had been before his uncle"s death, he would probably have become a laborious and distinguished man. But though his abilities were good, he had not those restless impulses which belong to Genius--often not only its glory, but its curse. The Golden Rod cast his energies asleep at once. Good-natured to a fault, and somewhat vacillating in character, he adopted the manner and the code of the rich young idlers who were his equals at College. He became, like them, careless, extravagant, and fond of pleasure. This change, if it deteriorated his mind, improved his exterior. It was a change that could not but please women; and of all women his mother the most. Mrs.
Beaufort was a lady of high birth; and in marrying her, Robert had hoped much from the interest of her connections; but a change in the ministry had thrown her relations out of power; and, beyond her dowry, he obtained no worldly advantage with the lady of his mercenary choice.
Mrs. Beaufort was a woman whom a word or two will describe. She was thoroughly commonplace--neither bad nor good, neither clever nor silly.
She was what is called well-bred; that is, languid, silent, perfectly dressed, and insipid. Of her two children, Arthur was almost the exclusive favourite, especially after he became the heir to such brilliant fortunes. For she was so much the mechanical creature of the world, that even her affection was warm or cold in proportion as the world shone on it. Without being absolutely in love with her husband, she liked him--they suited each other; and (in spite of all the temptations that had beset her in their earlier years, for she had been esteemed a beauty--and lived, as worldly people must do, in circles where examples of unpunished gallantry are numerous and contagious) her conduct had ever been scrupulously correct. She had little or no feeling for misfortunes with which she had never come into contact; for those with which she had--such as the distresses of younger sons, or the errors of fashionable women, or the disappointments of "a proper ambition"--she had more sympathy than might have been supposed, and touched on them with all the tact of well-bred charity and ladylike forbearance. Thus, though she was regarded as a strict person in point of moral decorum, yet in society she was popular-as women at once pretty and inoffensive generally are.
To do Mrs. Beaufort justice, she had not been privy to the letter her husband wrote to Catherine, although not wholly innocent of it. The fact is, that Robert had never mentioned to her the peculiar circ.u.mstances that made Catherine an exception from ordinary rules--the generous propositions of his brother to him the night before his death; and, whatever his incredulity as to the alleged private marriage, the perfect loyalty and faith that Catherine had borne to the deceased,--he had merely observed, "I must do something, I suppose, for that woman; she very nearly entrapped my poor brother into marrying her; and he would then, for what I know, have cut Arthur out of the estates. Still, I must do something for her--eh?"
"Yes, I think so. What was she?-very low?"
"A tradesman"s daughter."
"The children should be provided for according to the rank of the mother; that"s the general rule in such cases: and the mother should have about the same provision she might have looked for if she had married a tradesman and been left a widow. I dare say she was a very artful kind of person, and don"t deserve anything; but it is always handsomer, in the eyes of the world, to go by the general rules people lay down as to money matters."
So spoke Mrs. Beaufort. She concluded her husband had settled the matter, and never again recurred to it. Indeed, she had never liked the late Mr. Beaufort, whom she considered mauvais ton.
In the breakfast-room at Mr. Beaufort"s, the mother and son were seated; the former at work, the latter lounging by the window: they were not alone. In a large elbow-chair sat a middle-aged man, listening, or appearing to listen, to the prattle of a beautiful little girl--Arthur Beaufort"s sister. This man was not handsome, but there was a certain elegance in his air, and a certain intelligence in his countenance, which made his appearance pleasing. He had that kind of eye which is often seen with red hair--an eye of a reddish hazel, with very long lashes; the eyebrows were dark, and clearly defined; and the short hair showed to advantage the contour of a small well-shaped head. His features were irregular; the complexion had been sanguine, but was now faded, and a yellow tinge mingled with the red. His face was more wrinkled, especially round the eyes--which, when he laughed, were scarcely visible--than is usual even in men ten years older. But his teeth were still of a dazzling whiteness; nor was there any trace of decayed health in his countenance. He seemed one who had lived hard; but who had much yet left in the lamp wherewith to feed the wick. At the first glance he appeared slight, as he lolled listlessly in his chair--almost fragile. But, at a nearer examination, you perceived that, in spite of the small extremities and delicate bones, his frame was const.i.tutionally strong. Without being broad in the shoulders, he was exceedingly deep in the chest--deeper than men who seemed giants by his side; and his gestures had the ease of one accustomed to an active life.
He had, indeed, been celebrated in his youth for his skill in athletic exercises, but a wound, received in a duel many years ago, had rendered him lame for life--a misfortune which interfered with his former habits, and was said to have soured his temper. This personage, whose position and character will be described hereafter, was Lord Lilburne, the brother of Mrs. Beaufort.
"So, Camilla," said Lord Lilburne to his niece, as carelessly, not fondly, he stroked down her glossy ringlets, "you don"t like Berkeley Square as you did Gloucester Place."
"Oh, no! not half so much! You see I never walk out in the fields,--[Now the Regent"s Park.]--nor make daisy-chains at Primrose Hill. I don"t know what mamma means," added the child, in a whisper, "in saying we are better off here."
Lord Lilburne smiled, but the smile was a half sneer. "You will know quite soon enough, Camilla; the understandings of young ladies grow up very quickly on this side of Oxford Street. Well, Arthur, and what are your plans to-day?"