I do not like such gaiety, said Albinia. What, they wished to make you confess your secret?
Yes. They had learnt by some means that I keep one of my drawers locked, and they had figured to themselves that in it was some relic of my Huguenot ancestors. They thought it was some instrument of death, and they said that unless I would tell them the whole, the Admiral had the right of search, and, oh! it was foolish of me to believe them for a moment, but I only thought that the fright would, kill my grandmother. Oh, you were so good, Madame, I shall never forget; no, not to the end of my life, how you rescued me!
We did not bring you here to be teased, said Albinia, caressing her. I should like to ask your pardon for what they have made you undergo.
Ah, Madame! said Genevieve, smiling, it is nothing. I am well used to the like, and I heed it little, except when it falls on such subjects as these.
She was easily drawn into telling the full history of her treasure, as she had learnt from her fathers lips, the Huguenot shot down by the persecutors, and the son who had fled into the mountains and returned to bury the corpse, and take the prized, blood-stained Bible from the breast; the escapes and dangers of the two next generations; the few succeeding days of peace; and, finally, the Dragonnade, when the children had been snatched from the Durant family, and the father and mother had been driven at length to fly in utter destitution, and had made their way to England in a wretched, unprovisioned open boat. The child for whose sake they fled, was the only one rescued from the hands of these enemies, and the tradition of their sufferings had been handed on with the faithfully preserved relic, down to the slender girl, their sole descendant, and who in early childhood had drunk in the tale from the lips of her father. The child of the persecutors and of the persecuted, Genevieve Durant did indeed represent strangely the history of her ancestral country; and as Albinia said to her, surely it might be hoped that the faith in which she had been bred up, united what was true and sound in the religion of both Reformed and Romanist.
The words made the brown cheek glow. Ah, Madame, did I not say I could talk with you? You, who do not think me a heretic, as my dear grandmothers friends do, and who yet can respect my grandmothers Church.
Assuredly little Genevieve was one of the most interesting and engaging persons that Albinia had ever met, and she listened earnestly to her artless history, and pretty enthusiasms, and the story which she could not tell without tears, of her fathers care, when the reward of her good behaviour had been the reading one verse in the quaint black letter of the old French Bible.
The conversation lasted till Gilbert made his appearance, and Albinia was glad to find that his greeting to Genevieve was cordial and affectionate, and free from all that was unpleasant in his sisters manner, and he joined himself to their company when Albinia proposed a walk along the broad causeway through the meadows. It was one of the pleasantest walks that she had taken at Bayford, with both her companions so bright and merry, and the scene around in all the beauty of spring. Gilbert, with the courtesy that Albinias very presence had infused into him, gathered a pretty wild bouquet for each, and Albinia talked of cowslip-balls, and found that neither Gilbert nor Genevieve had ever seen one; then she pitied them, and owned that she did not know how to get through a spring without one; and Gilbert having of course a pocketful of string, a delicious ball was constructed, over which Genevieve went into an inexpressible ecstasy.
All the evening, Gilbert devoted himself to Genevieve, though more than one of the others tried to attract him, playing off the follies of more advanced girlhood, to the vexation of Albinia, who could not bear to see him the centre of attention to silly girls, when he ought to have been finding his level among boys.
Gilbert makes himself so ridiculous about Jenny Durant, said his sisters, when he insisted on escorting her home, and thus they brought on themselves Albinias pent-up indignation at their usage of their guest. Lucy argued in unsatisfactory self-defence, but Sophy, when shown how ungenerous her conduct had been, crimsoned deeply, and though uttering no word of apology, wore a look that gave her step-mother for the first time a hope that her sullenness might not be so much from want of compunction, as from want of power to express it.
Oh! for a consultation with her brother. But he and his wife were taking a holiday among their kindred in Ireland, and for once Albinia could have echoed the aunts lamentation that Winifred had so many relations!
CHAPTER V
Albinia needed patience to keep alive hope and energy, for a sore disappointment awaited her. Whatever had been her annoyances with the girls, she had always been on happy and comfortable terms with Gilbert, he had responded to her advances, accommodated himself to her wishes, adopted her tastes, and returned her affection. She had early perceived that his father and sisters looked on him as the naughty one of the family, but when she saw Lucys fretting interference, and, Sophias wrangling contempt, she did not wonder that an unjust degree of blame had often fallen to his share; and under her management, he scarcely ever gave cause for complaint. That he was evidently happier and better for her presence, was compensation for many a vexation; she loved him with all her heart, made fun with him, told legends of the freaks of her brother Maurice and cousin Fred, and grudged no trouble for his pleasure.
As long as The Three Musqueteers lasted, he had come constantly to her dressing-room, and afterwards she promised to find other pleasant reading; but after such excitement, it was not easy to find anything that did not appear dry. As the daughter of a Peninsular man, she thought nothing so charming as the Subaltern, and Gilbert seemed to enjoy it; but by the time he had heard all her oral traditions of the war by way of notes, his attendance began to slacken; he stayed out later, and always brought excusesMr. Salsted had kept him, he had been with a fellow, or his pony had lost a shoe. Albinia did not care to question, the evenings were light and warm, and the one thing she desired for him was manly exercise: she thought it much better for him to be at play with his fellow-pupils, and she could not regret the gain of another hour to her hurried day.
One morning, however, Mr. Kendal called her, and his look was so grave and perturbed, that she hardly waited till the door was shut to ask in terror, what could be the matter.
Nothing to alarm you, he said. It is only that I am vexed about Gilbert. I have reason to fear that he is deceiving us again; and I want you to help us to recollect on which days he should have been at Tremblam. My dear, do not look so pale!
For Albinia had turned quite white at hearing that the boy, on whom she had fixed her warm affection, had been carrying on a course of falsehood; but a moments hope restored her. I did keep him at home on Tuesday, she said, it was so very hot, and he had a headache. I thought I might. You told me not to send him on doubtful days.
I hope you may be able to make out that it is right, said Mr. Kendal, but I am afraid that Mr. Salsted has too much cause of complaint. It is the old story!
And so indeed it proved, when Albinia heard what the tutor had come to say. The boy was seldom in time, often altogether missing, excusing himself by saying he was kept at home by fears of the weather; but Mr. Salsted was certain that his father could not know how he disposed of his time, namely, in a low style of sporting with young Tritton, the son of a rich farmer or half-gentleman, who was the pest of Mr. Salsteds parish. Ill-learnt, slurred-over lessons, with lame excuses, were nothing as compared with this, and the amount of petty deceit, subterfuge, and falsehood, was frightful, especially when Albinia recollected the tone of thought which the boy had seemed to be catching from her. Unused to duplicity, except from mere ignorant, unmanageable school-children, she was excessively shocked, and felt as if he must be utterly lost to all good, and had been acting a lie from first to last. After the conviction had broken on her, she hardly spoke, while Mr. Kendal was promising to talk to his son, threaten him with severe punishment, and keep a strict account of his comings and goings, to be compared weekly with Mr. Salsteds notes of his arrival. This settled, the tutor departed, and no sooner was he gone, than Albinia, hiding her face in her hands, shed tears of bitter grief and disappointment. My dearest, said her husband, fondly, you must not let my boys doings grieve you in this manner. You have been doing your utmost for him, if any one could do him good, it would be you.
O no, surely I must have made some dreadful mistake, to have promoted such faults.
No, I have long known him not to be trustworthy. It is an evil of long standing.
Was it always so?
I cannot tell, said he, sitting down beside her, and shading his brow with one hand; I have only been aware of it since he has been left alone. When the twins were together, they were led by one soul of truth and generosity. What this poor fellow was separately no one could know, while he had his brother to guide and shield him. The first time I noticed the evil was when we were recovering. Gilbert and Sophia were left together, and in one of their quarrels injured some papers of mine. I was very weak, and had little power of self-control; I believe I terrified him too much. There was absolute falsehood, and the truth was only known by Sophias coming forward and confessing the whole. It was ill managed. I was not equal to dealing with him, and whether the mischief began then or earlier, it has gone on ever since, breaking out every now and then. I had hoped that with your careBut oh! how different it would have been with his brother! Albinia, what would I not give that you had but seen him! Not a fault was there; not a moments grief did he give us, tillO what an overthrow of hope! And he gave way to an excess of grief that quite appalled her, and made her feel herself powerless to comfort. She only ventured a few words of peace and hope; but the contrast between the brothers, was just then keen agony, and he could not help exclaiming how strange it was, that Edmund should be the one to be taken.
Nay, he said, was not he ripe for better things? May not poor Gilbert have been spared that longer life may train him to be like his brother?
He never will be like him, cried Mr. Kendal. No! no! The difference is evident in the very countenance and features.
Was he like you?
They said so, but you could not gather an idea of him from me, said Mr. Kendal, smiling mournfully, as he met her gaze. It was the most beautiful countenance I ever saw, full of life and joy; and there were wonderful expressions in the eyes when he was thinking or listening. He used to read the Greek Testament with me every morning, and his questions and remarks rise up before me again. That textYou have seen it in church.
Because I live, ye shall live also, Albinia repeated.
Yes. A little before his illness we came to that. He rested on it, as he used to do on anything that struck him, and asked me, whether it meant the life hereafter, or the life that is hidden here? We went over it with such comments as I could find, but his mind was not satisfied; and it must have gone on working on it, for one night, when I had been thinking him delirious, he called me, and the light shone out of those bright dark eyes of his as he said, joyfully, It is both, papa! It is hidden here, but it will shine out there, and as I did not catch his meaning, he repeated the Greek words.
Dear boy! Some day we shall be glad that the full life and glory came so soon.
He shook his head, the parting was still too recent, and it was the first time he had been able to speak of his son. It was a great satisfaction to her that the reserve had once been broken; it seemed like compensation for the present trouble, though that was acutely felt, and not softened by the curious eyes and leading questions of the sisters, when she returned to give what attention she could to their interrupted lessons.
Gilbert returned, unsuspicious of the storm, till his fathers stern gravity, and her depressed, pre-occupied manner, excited his attention, and he asked her anxiously whether anything were the matter. A sad gesture replied, and perhaps revealed the state of the case, for he became absolutely silent. Albinia left them together. She watched anxiously, and hurried after Mr. Kendal into the study, where his manner showed her not to be unwelcome as the sharer of his trouble. I do not know what to do, he said, dejectedly. I can make nothing of him. It is all prevarication and sulkiness! I do not think he felt one word that I said.
People often feel more than they show.
He groaned.
Will you go to him? he presently added. Perhaps I grew too angry at last, and I believe he loves you. At least, if he does not, he must be more unfeeling than I can think him. You do not dislike it, dearest.
O no, no! If I only knew what would be best for him!
He may be more unreserved with you, said Mr. Kendal; and as he was anxious for her to make the attempt, she moved away, though in perplexity, and in the revulsion of feeling, with a sort of disgust towards the boy who had deceived her so long.
She found him seated on a wheelbarrow by the pond, chucking pebbles into the still black water, and disturbing the duckweed on the surface. His colour was gone, and his face was dark and moody, and strove not to relax, as she said, O Gilbert, how could you?
He turned sharply away, muttering, She is coming to bother, now!
It cut her to the heart. Gilbert! was all she could exclaim, but the tone of pain made him look at her, as if in spite of himself, and as he saw the tears he exclaimed in an impatient voice of rude consolation, Theres nothing to take so much to heart. No one thinks anything of it!
What would Edmund have thought? said Albinia; but the appeal came too soon, he made an angry gesture and said, He was nearly three years younger than I am now! He would not have been kept in these abominable leading-strings.
She was too much shocked to find an answer, and Gilbert went on, Watched and examined wherever I gonot a minute to myselfnothing but lessons at Tremblam, and bother at home; driven about hither and thither, and not allowed a friend of my own, nor to do one single thing! Theres no standing it, and I wont!
I am very sorry, said Albinia, struggling with choking tears. It has been my great wish to make things pleasant to you. I hope I have not teased or driven you to
Nonsense! exclaimed Gilbert, disrespectfully indeed, but from the bottom of his heart, and breaking at once into a flood of tears. You are the only creature that has been kind to me since I lost my mother and Ned, and now they have been and turned you against me too; and he sobbed violently.
I dont know what you mean, Gilbert. If I stand in your mothers place, I cant be turned against you, any more than she could, and she stroked his brow, which she found so throbbing as to account for his paleness. You can grieve and hurt me, but you cant prevent me from feeling for you, nor for your dear fathers grief.
He declared that people at home knew nothing about boys, and made an uproar about nothing.
Do you call falsehood nothing?
Falsehood! A mere trifle now and then, when I am driven to it by being kept so strictly.
I dont know how to talk to you, Gilbert, said Albinia, rising; your conscience knows better than your tongue.
Dont go; and he went off into another paroxysm of crying, as he caught hold of her dress; and when he spoke again his mood was changed; he was very miserable, nobody cared for him, he did not know what to do; he wanted to do right, and to please her, but Archie Tritton would not let him alone; he wished he had never seen Archie Tritton. At last, walking up and down with him, she drew from him a full confidence, and began to understand how, when health and strength had come back to him in greater measure than he had ever before enjoyed, the craving for boyish sports had awakened, just after he had been deprived of his brother, and was debarred from almost every wholesome manner of gratifying it. To fall in with young Tritton was as great a misfortune as could well have befallen a boy, with a dreary home, melancholy, reserved father, and wearisome aunt. Tritton was a youth of seventeen, who had newly finished his education at an inferior commercial school, and lived on his fathers farm, giving himself the airs of a sporting character, and fast hurrying into dissipation.