_ CHAPTER XVI
Captain Rothesay found himself at breakfast on the sixth morning of his stay at Harbury--so swiftly had the time flown. But he felt a purer and a happier man every hour that he spent with his ancient friend.
The breakfast-room was Harold's study. It was more that of a man of science and learning than that of a clergyman. Beside Leighton and Flavel were placed Bacon and Descartes; dust lay upon John Newton's Sermons, while close by, rested in honoured, well-thumbed tatters, his great namesake, who read God's scriptures in the stars. In one corner by a large, unopened packet--marked "Religious Society's Tracts;" it served as a stand for a large telescope, whose clumsiness betrayed the ingenuity of home manufacture. The theological contents of the library was a vast mass of polemical literature, orthodox and heterodox, including all faiths, all variations of sect. Mahomet and Swedenborg, Calvin and the Talmud, lay side by side; and on the farthest shelf was the great original of all creeds--the Book of books.
On this morning, as on most others, Harold Gwynne did not appear until after prayers were over. His mother read them, as indeed she always did morning and evening. A stranger might have said, that her doing so was the last lingering token of her sway as "head of the household."
Harold entered, his countenance bearing the pallid restless look of one who lies half-dreaming in bed, long after he is awake and ought to have risen. His mother saw it.
"You are not right, Harold. I had far rather that you rose at six and studied till nine, as formerly, than that you should dream away the morning hours, and come down looking as you do now. Forgive me, but it is not good for you, my son."
She often called him _my son_ with a beautiful simplicity, that reminded one of the holy Hebrew mothers--of Rebekah or of Hannah.
Harold looked for a moment disconcerted--not angry. "Do not mind me, mother; I shall go back to study in good time. Let me do as I judge best."
"Certainly," was all the mother's reply. She reproved--she never "scolded." Turning the conversation, she directed hers to Captain Rothesay, while Harold ate his breakfast in silence--a habit not unusual with him. Immediately afterwards he rose, and prepared to depart for the day.
"I need not apologise to Captain Rothesay," he said in his own straightforward manner, which was only saved from the imputation of bluntness by a certain manly dignity--and contrasted strongly with the reserved and courtly grace of his guest. "My pursuits can scarcely interest you, while I know, and _you_ know, what pleasure my mother takes in your society."
"You will not stay away all this day too, Harold. Surely that is a little too much to be required, even by Miss Derwent," spoke the quick impulse of the mother's unconscious jealousy. But she repressed it at once--even before the sudden flush of anger awakened by her words had faded from Harold's brow. "Go, my son--your mother never interferes either with your duties or your pleasures."
Harold took her hand--though with scarce less formality than he did that of Captain Rothesay; and in a few minutes they saw him gallop down the hill and across the open country, with a speed beseeming well the age of five-and-twenty, and the season of a first love.
Mrs. Gwynne looked after him with an intensity of feeling that in any other woman would have found vent in a tear--certainly a sigh.
"You are thinking of your son and his marriage," said Angus.
"That is not strange. It is a life-crisis with all men--and it has come so suddenly--I scarcely know my Harold of two months since in my Harold now."
"To work such results, it must be an ardent love."
"Say, rather, a vehement passion--love does not spring up and flower, like my hyacinths there, in six weeks. But I do not complain. Reason, if not feeling, tells me that a mother cannot be all in all to a young man. Harold needs a wife--let him take one! They will be married soon; and if all Sara's qualities equal her beauty, this wild passion will soon mature into affection. He may be happy--I trust so!"
"But does the girl love him?"--"Of course," spoke the quick-rising maternal pride. But she almost smiled at it herself, and added--"Really, you must excuse these speeches of mine. I talk to you as I never do to any one else; but it is all for the sake of olden times. This has been a happy week to me. You must pay us another visit soon."
"I will And you must take a journey to my home, and learn to know my wife and Olive," said Rothesay. The influence of Alison Gwynne was unconsciously strengthening him; and though, from some inexplicable feeling, he had spoken but little of his wife and child, there were growing up in his mind many schemes, the chief of which were connected with Olive. But he now thought less of her appearing in the world as Captain Rothesay's heiress, than of her being placed within the shadow of Alison Gwynne, and so reflecting back upon her father's age that benign influence which had been the blessing of his youth.
He went on to tell Mrs. Gwynne more of his affairs and of his plans than he had communicated to any one for many a long year. In the midst of their conversation came the visitation--always so important in remote country districts--the every-other-day's post.
"For you--not me. I have few correspondents. So I will go to my duties, while you attend to yours," said Mrs. Gwynne, and departed.
When she came in again, Captain Rothesay was pacing the room uneasily.
"No ill news, I hope?"
"No, my kind friend--not exactly ill news, though vexatious enough. But why should I trouble you with them!"
"Nothing ever troubles me that can be of use to my friends. I ask no unwelcome confidence. If it is any relief to you to speak I will gladly hear. It is sometimes good for a man to have a woman to talk to."
"It is--it is!" And his heart opening itself more and more, he told her his cause of annoyance. A most important mercantile venture would be lost to him for want of what he called "a few paltry hundreds," to be forthcoming on the morrow.
"If it had been a fortnight--just till my next ship is due; or even one week, to give me time to make some arrangement! But where is the use of complaining! It is too late."
"Not quite," said Alison Gwynne, looking up after a few moments of deep thought; and, with a clearness which would have gained for her the repute of "a thorough woman of business," she questioned Captain Rothesay, until she drew from him a possible way of obviating his difficulty.
"If, as you say, I were in London now, where my banker or some business friend would take up a bill for me; but that is impossible!"
"Nay--why say that you have friends only in London?" replied Alison, with a gentle smile. "That is rather too unjust, Angus Rothesay. Our Highland clanship is not so clean forgotten, I hope. Come, old friend, it will be hard if I cannot do something for you. And Harold, who loves Flora Rothesay almost as much as he loves me, would gladly aid her kinsman."
"How--how! Nay, but I will never consent," cried Angus, with a resoluteness through which his first eager sense of relief was clearly discernible. Truly, there was coming upon him, with this mania of speculation, the same desperation which causes the gambler to clutch money from the starving hands of those who even yet are passionately dear.
"You _shall_ consent, friend," answered Mrs. Gwynne, composedly. "Why should you not? It is a mere form--an obligation of a week, at most. You will accept that for the sake of Alison Balfour."
He clasped her hand with as much emotion as was in his nature to show.
She continued--"Well, we will talk of this again when Harold comes in to dinner. But, positively, I see him returning. There he is, dashing up the hill. I hope nothing is the matter."
Yet she did not quit the room to meet him, but sat apparently quiet, though her hands were slightly trembling, until her son came in. In answer to her question, he said--
"No, no; nothing amiss. Only Mr. Fludyer would have me go to the Hall to see his new horses; and there I found"----
"Sara!" interrupted the mother. "Well, perhaps she thought it would be a pleasant change from the dulness of Waterton during your absence; so never mind."
He did mind. He restlessly paced the room, angry with his mother, himself--with the whole world. Mrs. Gwynne might well notice how this sudden passion had changed his nature. A moralist, looking on the knotted brow, would have smiled to see--not for the first time--a wise man making of himself a slave, nay, a very fool, for the enchantments of a beautiful woman.
His mother took his arm and walked with him up and down the room, without talking to him at all. But her firm step and firm clasp seemed to soothe--almost force him into composure. She had over him at once a mother's influence and a father's control.
Meanwhile, Captain Rothesay busied, or seemed to busy himself, with his numerous letters, and very wisely kept nearly out of sight.
As soon as her son appeared a little recovered from his vexation, Mrs. Gwynne said,
"Now, Harold, if you are quite willing, I want to talk to you for a few minutes. Shall it be now or this evening?"
"This evening I shall ride over to Waterton."
"What! not one evening to spare for your mother, or"----she corrected herself, "for your beloved books?"
He moved restlessly.
"Nay, I have had enough of study; I must have interest, amusement, excitement. I think I have drunk all the world's pleasures dry, except this one. Mother, don't keep it from me; I know no rest except I am beside Sara."
He rarely spoke to her so freely, and, despite her pain, the mother was touched.
"Go, then, go to Sara; and the matter I wished to speak upon we will discuss now."
He sat down and listened, though often only with his outward ears, to her plan, by which Captain Rothesay might be saved from his difficulty.
"It is a merely nominal thing; I would do it myself, but a man's name would be more useful than a woman's. Yours will. My son Harold will at once perform such a trifling act of kindness for his mother's friend."
"Of course--of course. Come, mother, tell me what to do; you understand business affairs much better than your son!" said Harold, as he rose to seek his guest.
Captain Rothesay scrupled a while longer; but at length the dazzling vision of coming wealth absorbed both pride and reluctance. It would be so hard to miss the chance of thousands, by objecting to a mere form. "Besides, Harold Gwynne shall share my success," he thought; and he formed many schemes for changing the comparative poverty of the parsonage into comfort and luxury. It was only when the pen was in the young man's hand, ready to sign the paper, that the faintest misgiving crossed Rothesay's mind.
"Stay, it is but for a few days--yet life sometimes ends in an hour. What if I should die, at once, before I can requite you? Mr. Gwynne, you shall not do it."
"He _shall_--I mean, he will," answered the mother.
"But not until I have secured him in some way."
"Nay, Angus; we 'auld acquaintance' should not thus bargain away our friendship," said Mrs. Gwynne, with wounded pride--Highland pride. "And besides, there is no time to lose. Here is the acceptance ready--so, Harold, sign!"
Harold did sign. The instant after, glad to escape, he quitted the room.
Angus Rothesay sank on a chair with a heart-deep sigh of relief. It was done now. He eyed with thankfulness the paper which had secured him the golden prize.
"It is but a trifle--a sum not worth naming," he muttered to himself; and so, indeed, it seemed to one who had "turned over" thousands like mere heaps of dust. He never thought that it was an amount equal to Harold's yearly income for which the young man had thus become bound.
Yet he omitted not again and again to thank Mrs. Gwynne, and with excited eagerness to point to all the prospects now before him.
"And besides, you cannot think from what you have saved me--the annoyance--the shame of breaking my word. Oh, my friend, you know not in what a whirling, restless world of commerce I live! To fail in anything, or to be thought to fail, would positively ruin me and drive me mad."
"Angus--old companion!" answered Mrs. Gwynne, regarding him earnestly, "you must not blame me if I speak plainly. In one week I have seen far into your heart--farther than you think. Be advised by me; change this life for one more calm. Home and its blessings never come too late."
"You are right," said Angus. "I sometimes think that all is not well with me. I am growing old, and business racks my head sadly sometimes. Feel it now!"
He carried to his brow her hand--the hand which had led him when a boy, which in his fantastic dream of youth he had many a time kissed; even now, when the pulses were grown leaden with age, it felt cool, calm, like the touch of some pitying and protecting angel.
Alison Gwynne said gently, "My friend, you say truly all is not well with you. Let us put aside all business, and walk in the garden. Come!"
Captain Rothesay lingered at Harbury yet one day more. But he could not stay longer, for this important business-venture made him restless. Besides, Harold's wedding was near at hand: in less than a week the mother would be sole regent of her son's home no more. No wonder that this made her grave and anxious--so that even her old friend's presence was a slight restraint Yet she bade him adieu with her own cordial sincerity. He began to pour out thanks for all kindness--especially the one kindness of all, adding--
"But I will say no more. You shall see or hear from me in a few days at farthest."
"Not until after the wedding--I can think of nothing till after the wedding," answered Mrs. Gwynne. "Now, farewell, friend! but not for another thirty years, I trust!"
"No, no!" cried Angus, warmly. He looked at her as she sat by the light of her own hearth--life's trials conquered--life's duties fulfilled--and she appeared not less divine a creature than the Alison Balfour who had trod the mountains full of joy, and hope, and energy. Holy and beautiful she had seemed to him in her youth; and though every relic of that passionate idealisation he once called love, was gone, still holy and beautiful she seemed to him in her age.
Angus Rothesay rode away from Harbury parsonage, feeling that there he had gained a new interest to make life and life's duties more sacred. He thought with tenderness of his home--of his wife, and of his "little Olive;" and then, travelling by a rather circuitous route, his thoughts rested on Harold Gwynne.
"The kind-hearted, generous fellow! I will take care he is requited double. And to-morrow, before even I reach Oldchurch, I will go to my lawyer's and make all safe on his account."
"To-morrow!" He remembered not the warning, "Boast not thyself of to-morrow." _