CHAPTER XLII
I will not say that Philip's sleep was broken by this question, but it undoubtedly recurred to his mind the first thing in the morning when he jumped out of bed very late for breakfast, and the events of the past night and the lateness of the hour at which he got to rest came back upon him as excuses in the first place for his tardiness. And then, which was remarkable, it was not the scene in the play in which he had been most interested which came to his mind, but a vision of that box and the man standing in front of it staring at him through the black tubes of the opera-glass which came before Philip like a picture. Uncle John had said it was at the ladies behind, but the boy felt sure it was no lady behind, but himself, on whom that stare was fixed. Who would care to stare so at him? It faintly gleamed across his thoughts that it might be some one who had heard of the scholarship, but he dismissed that thought instantly with a blush. It also gleamed upon him with equal vagueness like a momentary but entirely futile light, consciously derived from story books, and of which he was much ashamed, that the inexplicable attention given to himself might have something to do with the girl who had such keen eyes. Philip blushed fiery red at this involuntary thought, and chased it from his mind like a mad dog; but he could not put away the picture of the box, the girl putting aside the curtain to look at him, and the opera-glass fixed upon his face. And then why was Uncle John in such a hurry to get away? It had seemed a capital joke at that moment, but when he came to think of it, it was rather strange that a man who might be Solicitor-General to-morrow if he liked, and probably Lord Chancellor in a few years, should make a schoolboy rush from the stalls of a theatre with the object of being first out. Philip disapproved of so undignified a step on the part of his elderly relation. And he saw now in the serious morning that Uncle John was very unlikely to have done it for fun. What, then, did it mean?
He came down full of these thoughts, and rather ashamed of being late, wondering whether his mother would have waited for him (which would have annoyed him), or if she would have finished her breakfast (which would have annoyed him still more). Happily for Elinor, she had hit the golden mean, and was pouring out for herself a second cup of coffee (but Philip was not aware it was the second) when the boy appeared. She was quite restored to her usual serenity and freshness, and as eager to know how he had enjoyed himself as she always was. He gave her a brief sketch of the play and of what pleased him in it as in duty bound. "But," he added, "what interested me almost more was that we had a sort of a – little play of our own."
"What?" she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. One thing that puzzled him was that she was so very easily startled, which it seemed to Philip had never been the case before.
"Well," he said, "the lady was there whom Uncle John met in the park – and the girl with her – and I believe the little dog. She made all sorts of signs to him, but he took scarcely any notice. But that's not all, mother – "
"It's a good deal, Pippo – "
"Is it? Why do you speak in that choked voice, mother? I suppose it is just one of his society acquaintances. But the thing was that before the last act somebody else came forward to the front of the box, and fixed – I was going to say his eyes, I mean his opera-glasses upon us."
Philip had meant to say upon me – but he had produced already so great an effect on his mother's face that he moderated instinctively the point of this description. "And stared at us," he added, "all the rest of the time, paying not the least attention to anything that was going on. It's a queer sensation," he went on, with a laugh, "to feel that black mysterious-looking thing like the eyes of some monster with no speculation in them, fixed upon you. Now, I want you to tell me – What's the matter, mother?"
"Nothing, Pippo; nothing," said Elinor, faintly, stooping to lift up a book she had let fall. "Go on with your story. I am very much interested; and then, my dear?"
"Mother," cried Philip, "I don't know what has come over you, or over me. There's something going on I can't understand. You never used to have any secrets from me. I was always in your confidence – wasn't I, mother?"
It was not a book she had let fall, but a ring that she had dropped from her finger, and which had to be followed over the carpet. It made her red and flushed when she half raised her head to say, "Yes, Pippo – you know – I have always told you – "
Philip did not remark that what his mother said was nothing after all. He got up to help her to look for her ring, and put his arm round her waist as she knelt on the floor.
"Yes, mamma," he said, tenderly, protectingly, "I do know: but something's changed; either it's in me that makes you feel you can't trust me – or else it is in you. And I don't know which would be worst."
"There is no change," she said, after a moment, for she could not help the ring being found, and immediately when his quick, young eyes came to the search: but she did not look him in the face. "There is no change, dear. There is only some worrying business which involves a great many troubles of my old life before you were born. You shall hear – everything – in a little while: but I cannot enter into it all at this moment. It is full of complications and – secrets that belong to other people. Pippo, you must promise me to wait patiently, and to believe – to believe – always the best you can – of your mother."
The boy laughed as he raised her up, still holding her with his arm. "Believe the best I can! Well, I don't think that will be a great effort, mother. Only to think that you can't trust me as you always have done makes me wretched. We've been such friends, haven't we, mamma? I've always told you everything, or at least everything except just the nonsense at school: and you've told me everything. And if we are going to be different now – "
"You've told me everything!" the boy was as sure of it as that he was born. She had to hold by him to support herself, and it cost her a strong effort to restrain the shiver that ran through her. "We are not going to be different," she said, "as soon as we leave London – or before – you shall know everything about this business of mine, Pippo. Will that satisfy you? In the meantime it is not pleasant business, dear; and you must bear with me if I am abstracted sometimes, and occupied, and cross."
"But, mother," said Philip, bending over her with that young celestial foolish look of gravity and good advice with which a neophyte will sometimes address the much-experienced and heavily-laden pilgrim, "don't you think it would be easier if it was all open between us, and I took my share? If it is other people's secrets I would not betray them, you know that."
Unfortunately Elinor here murmured, scarcely knowing what words came from her lips, "That is what John says."
"John," said the boy, furious with the quick rage of injured tenderness and pride, "Uncle John! and you tell him more, him, an outsider, than you tell me!"
He let her go then, which was a great relief to Elinor, for she could command herself better when he was a little farther off, and could not feel the thrill that was in her, and the thumping of her heart.
"You must remember, Pippo," she said, "what I have told you, that my present very disagreeable, very painful business is about things that happened before you were born, which John knew everything about. He was my adviser then, as far as I would take any advice, which I am afraid never was much, Pippo," she said; "never, alas! all my life. Granny will tell you that. But John, always the kindest friend and the best brother in the world, did everything he could. And it would have been better for us all if I had taken his advice instead of always, I fear, always my own way."
Strangely enough this cheered Pippo and swept the cloud from his face. "I'm glad you didn't take anybody's advice, mother. I shouldn't have liked it. I've more faith in you than anybody. Well, then, now about this man. What man in the world – I really mean in the world, in what is called society, for that is the kind of people they were – could have such a curiosity about – me?"
She had resumed her seat, and her face was turned away from him. Also the exquisite tone of complacency and innocent self-appreciation with which Philip expressed this wonder helped her a little to surmount the situation. Elinor could have laughed had her heart been only a trifle less burdened. She said: "Are you sure it was at you?"
"Uncle John said something about ladies behind us, but I am sure it was no ladies behind. It might, of course," the boy added, cautiously, "have been him, you know. I suppose Uncle John's a personage, isn't he? But after all, you know, hang it, mother, it isn't easy to believe that a fellow like that would stare so at Uncle John."
"Poor John! It is true there is not much novelty about him," said Elinor, with a tremble in her voice, which, if it was half agitation, was yet a little laughter too: for there are scarcely any circumstances, however painful, in which those who are that way moved by nature are quite able to quench the unconquerable laugh. She added, with a falter in which there was no laughter, "and what – was the – fellow like?"
"All that I could see was that he was a tall man. I saw his large shirt-front and his black evening clothes, and something like grey hair above those two big, black goggles – "
"Grey hair!" Elinor said, with a low suppressed cry.
"He never took them away from his eyes for a moment, so of course I could not see his face, or anything much except that he was more than common tall – like myself," Pippo said, with a little air of pleased vanity in the comparison.
Like himself! She did not make any remark. It is very doubtful whether she could have done so. There came before her so many visions of the past, and such a vague, confused, bewildering future, of which she could form no definite idea what it would be. Was it with a pang that she foresaw that drawing towards another influence: that mingled instinct, curiosity, perhaps admiration and wonder, which already seemed to move her boy's unconscious mind? Elinor did not even know whether that would hurt her at all. Even now there seemed a curious pungent sense of half-pleasure in the pain. Like himself! So he was. And if it should be that it was his father, who for hours had stood there, not taking his eyes off the boy (for hours her imagination said, though Pippo had not said so), his father who had known where she was and never disturbed her, never interfered with her; the man who had summoned her to perform her martyrdom for him, never doubting – Phil, with grey hair! To say what mingled feelings swept through Elinor's mind, with all these elements in them, is beyond my power. She saw him with his face concealed, standing up unconscious of the crowded place and of the mimic life on the stage, his eyes fixed upon his son whom he had never seen before. Where was there any drama in which there was a scene like this? His son, his only child, the heir! Unconsciously even to herself that fact had some influence, no doubt, on Elinor's thoughts. And it would be impossible to say how much influence had that unexpected subduing touch of the grey hair: and the strange change in the scene altogether. The foolish, noisy, "fast" woman, with her tourbillon of men and dogs about her, turned into the old lady of Pippo's careless remark, with her daughter beside her far more important than she: and the tall figure in the front of the box, with grey hair —
Young Philip had not the faintest light or guidance in the discovery of his mother's thoughts. He was much more easy and comfortable now that there had been an explanation between them, though it was one of those explanations which explained nothing. He even forgave Uncle John for knowing more than he did, moved thereto by the consolatory thought that John's advice had never been taken, and that his mother had always followed her own way. This was an incalculable comfort to Pippo's mind, and gave him composure to wait calmly for the clearing up of the mystery, and the restoration of that perfect confidence between his mother and himself which he was so firmly convinced had existed all his life. He was a great deal happier after, and gave her an excellent account of the play, which he had managed to see quite satisfactorily, notwithstanding the other "little play of our own" which ran through everything. At Philip's age one can see two things at once well enough. I knew a boy who at one and the same moment got the benefit of (1st) his own story book, which he read lying at full length before the fire, half buried in the fur of a great rug; and (2nd) of the novel which was being read out over his head for the benefit of the other members of the family – or at least he strenuously asserted he did, and indeed proved himself acquainted with both. Philip in the same way had taken in everything in the play, even while his soul was intent upon the opera-glass in the box. He had not missed anything of either. He gave an account of the first, from which the drama might have been written down had fate destroyed it: and had noticed the minauderies of the heroine, and the eager determination not to be second to her in anything which distinguished the first gentleman, as if he had nothing else in his mind: while all the time he had been under the fascination of the two black eyeholes braqués upon him, the mysterious gaze as of a ghost from eyes which he never saw.
This occupied some part of the forenoon, and Philip was happy. But when he had completed his tale and began to feel the necessity of going out, and remembered that he had nowhere to go and nothing to do, the prospect was not alluring. He tried very hard to persuade his mother to go out with him, but this was a risk from which Elinor shrank. She shrank, too, from his proposal at last to go out to the park by himself.
"To the Row. I sha'n't know the people except those who are in Punch every week, and I shall envy the fellows riding – but at least it will be something to see."
"I wish you would not go to the Row, Pippo."
"Why, mother? Doesn't everybody go? And you never were here at this time of the year before."
"No," she said, with a long breath of despair. No; of all times of the year this was the one in which she had never risked him in London. And, oh! that he had been anywhere in the world except London now!
Philip, who had been watching her countenance with great interest, here patted her on the shoulder with condescending, almost paternal, kindness. "Don't you be frightened, mother. I'll not get into any mischief. I'll neither be rode over, nor robbed, nor run away. I'll take as great care of myself as if you had been there."
"I'm not afraid that you will be ridden over or robbed," she said, forcing a smile; "but there is one thing, Pippo. Don't talk to anybody whom you – don't know. Don't let yourself be drawn into – If you should meet, for instance, that lady – who was in the theatre last night."
"Yes, mother?"
"Don't let her make acquaintance with you; don't speak to her, nor the girl, nor any one that may be with her. At the risk even of being uncivil – "
"Why, mother," he said, elevating his eyebrows, "how could I be uncivil to a lady?"
"Because I tell you," she cried, "because you must – because I shall sit here in terror counting every moment till you come back, if you don't promise me this."
He looked at her with the most wondering countenance, half disapproving, half pitying. Was she going mad? what was happening to her? was she after all, though his mother, no better than the jealous foolish women in books, who endeavoured at all costs to separate their children from every influence but their own? How could Pippo think such things of his mother? and yet what else could he think?
"I had better," he said, "if that is how you feel, mother, not go to the Row at all."
"Much better, much better!" she cried. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Pippo – you have never been to see – the Tower." She had run over all the most far-off and unlikely places in her mind, and this occurred to her as the most impossible of all to attract any visitor of whom she could be afraid. "I have changed my mind," she added. "Well have a hansom, and I will go with you to see the Tower."
"So long as you go with me," said Pippo, "I don't care where I go."
And they set out almost joyfully as in their old happy expeditions of old, for that long drive through London in the hansom. And yet the boy was only lulled for the moment, and in his heart was more and more perplexed what his mother could mean.
CHAPTER XLIII
Fortune was favourable to Elinor that day. At the Tower, where she duly went over everything that was to be seen with Pippo, conscious all the time of his keen observance of her through all that he was doing, and even through his interest in what he saw – and feeling for the first time in her life that there was between her boy and her something that he felt, something that was not explained by anything she had said, and that awaited the dreadful moment when everything would have to be told – at the Tower, as I say, they met some friends from the north, the rector of the parish, who had come up with his son to see town, and was naturally taking his boy, as Elinor took hers, to see all that was not town, in the usual sense of the word. They were going to Woolwich and Greenwich next day, and with a pang of mingled trouble and relief in her mind Elinor contrived to engage Pippo to accompany them. On the second day I think they were to go to St. Katherine's Docks, or the Isle of Dogs, or some other equally important and interesting sight – far better no doubt for the two youths than to frequent such places as the Row, and gaze at the stream of gaiety and luxury which they could not join. Pippo in ordinary circumstances would have been delighted to see Woolwich and the docks – but it was so evident to him that his mother was anxiously desirous to dispose of him so, that his satisfaction was much lessened. The boy, however, was magnanimous enough to consent without any appearance of reluctance. In the many thoughts which filled his mind Philip showed his fine nature, by having already come to consent to the possibility that his mother might have business of her own into which he had no right to enter unless at her own time and with her full consent. It cost him an effort, I allow, to come to that: but yet he did so, and resolved, a little pride helping him, to inquire no more, and if possible to wonder or be offended no more, but to wait the time she had promised, when the old rule of perfect confidence should be re-established between them. The old rule! if Pippo had but known! nothing yet had given Elinor such a sense of guilt as his conviction that she had told him everything, that there had been no secrets between them during all the happy life that was past.
How entirely relieved Elinor was when he started to join his friends next morning it would be impossible to put into words. She watched all his lingering movements before he went with eyes in which she tried to quench the impatience, and look only with the fond admiration and interest she felt upon all his little preparations, his dawning sense of what was becoming in apparel, the flower in his coat, the carefully rolled umbrella, the hat brushed to the most exquisite smoothness, the handkerchief just peeping from his breast-*pocket. It is always a revelation to a woman to find that these details occupy as much of a young man's attention as her own toilette occupies hers; and that he is as tremulously alive to "what is worn" in many small particulars that never catch her eye, as she is to details which entirely escape him. She smiles at him as he does at her, each in that conscious superiority to the other, which is on the whole an indulgent sentiment. Underneath all her anxiety to see him go, to get rid of him (was that the dreadful truth in this terrible crisis of her affairs?), she felt the amusement of the boy's little coquetries, and the mother's admiration of his fresh looks, his youthful brightness, his air of distinction; how different from the Rector's boy, who was a nice fellow enough, and a credit to his rectory, and whose mother, I do not doubt, felt in his ruddy good looks something much superior in robustness, and strength, and manhood to the too-tall and too-slight golden youth of the ladies at Lakeside! It even flitted across Elinor's mind to give him within herself the title that was to be his, everybody said – Lord Lomond! And then she asked herself indignantly what honour it could add to her spotless boy to have such a vain distinction; a name that had been soiled by so much ignoble use? Elinor had prided herself all her life on an indifference to, almost a contempt for, the distinctions of rank: and that it should occur to her to think of that title as an embellishment to Pippo – nay, to think furtively, without her own knowledge, so to speak, that Pippo looked every inch a lord and heir to a peerage, was an involuntary weakness almost incredible. She blushed for herself as she realised it: – a peerage which had meant so little that was excellent – a name connected with so many undesirable precedents: still I suppose when it is his own even the veriest democrat is conscious at least of the picturesqueness, the superiority, as a mode of distinguishing one man from another, of anything that can in the remotest sense be called a historical name.
When Pippo was out of sight Elinor turned from the window with a sigh, and came back to the dark chamber of her own life, full at this moment of all the gathered blackness of the past and of the future. She put her hands over her eyes, and sank down upon a seat, as if to shut out from herself all that was before her. But shut it out as she might, there it was – the horrible court with the judgment-seat, the rows of faces bent upon her, the silence through which her own voice must rise alone, saying – what? What was it she was called there to say? Oh, how little they knew who suggested that her mother should have been called instead of her, with all her minute old-fashioned calculations and exact memory, who even now, when all was over, would probably convict Elinor of a mistake! Even at that penalty what would not she give to have it over, the thing said, the event done with, whatever it might bring after it! And it could now be only a very short time till the moment of the ordeal would come, when she should stand up in the face of her country, before the solemn judge on his bench, before all the gaping, wondering people – before, oh! thought most dreadful of all, which we would not, could not, contemplate – before one who knew everything, and say – She picked herself up trembling as it were, and uncovered her eyes, and protested to herself that she would say nothing that was not true. Nothing that was not true! She would tell her story – so well remembered, so often conned; that story that had been put into her lips twenty years ago which she had repeated then confused, not knowing how it was that what was a simple fact should nevertheless not be true. Alas! she knew that very well now, and yet would have to repeat it before God and the world. But thinking would make it no better – thinking could only make it worse. She sprang up again, and began to occupy herself with something she had to do: the less it was thought over the better: for now the trial had begun, and her ordeal would soon be done too. If only the boy could be occupied, kept away – if only she could be left alone to do what she had to do! That he should be there was the last aggravation of which her fate was capable; there in idleness, reading the papers in the morning, which was a thing she had so lately calculated a boy at school was unlikely to do; and what so likely as that his eye would be caught by his own name in the report of the trial, which would be an exciting trial and fully reported – a trial which interested society. The boy would see his own name: she could almost hear him cry out, looking up from his breakfast, "Hallo, mother! here's something about a Philip Compton!" And all the questions that would follow – "Is he the same Comptons that we are? What Comptons do we belong to? You never told me anything about my family. Is this man any relation, I wonder? Both surname and Christian name the same. It's strange if there is no connection!" She could almost hear the words he would say – all that and more – and what should she reply?
"I have only one thing to say, Elinor," said John, to whom in her desperation she turned again, as she always did, disturbing him, poor man, in his chambers as he was collecting his notes and his thoughts in the afternoon after his work was over: "it is the same as I have always said; even now make a clean breast of it to the boy. Tell him everything; better that he should hear it from your own lips than that it should burst upon him as a discovery. He has but to meet Lady Mariamne in the park, the most likely thing in the world – "
"No, John," cried Elinor, "no; the Marshalls are here, our Rector from Lakeside, and he is taking his boy to see all the sights. I have got Pippo to go with them. They are going to Woolwich to-day, and afterwards to quite a long list of things – oh, entirely out of everybody's way."
Her little look of uneasy triumph and satisfaction made John smile. She was not half so sure as she tried to look; but, all the same, had a little pride, a little pleasure in her own management, and in the happy chance of the Marshalls being in London, which was a thing that could not have been planned, an intervention of Providence. He could not refuse to smile – partly with her, partly at her simplicity – but, all the same, he shook his head.
"The only way in which there is any safety – the only chance of preserving him from a shock, a painful shock, Elinor, that may upset him for life – "
"How do you mean, upset him for life?"
"By showing him that his mother, whom he believes in like heaven, has deceived him since ever he was born."
She covered her face with her hands, and burst into a sobbing cry. "Oh, John, you don't know how true that is! He said to me only yesterday, 'You have always told me everything, mother. There has never been any secret between us.' Oh! John, John, only think of having that said to me, and knowing what I know!"
"Well, Elinor; believe me, my dear, there is but one thing to do. The boy is a good boy, full of love and kindness."
"Oh, isn't he, John? the best boy, the dearest – "
"And adores his mother, as a boy should," John got up from his chair and walked about the room for a little, and then he came behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Tell him, Elinor: my dear Nelly, as if I had never said a word on the subject before, I beseech you tell him, trust him fully, even now, at the eleventh hour."
She raised her head with a quivering, wistful smile. "The moment the trial is over, the moment it is over! I give you my word, John."
"Do not wait till it is over, do it now; to-night when he comes home."
She began to tremble so that John Tatham was alarmed – and kept looking at him with an imploring look, her lips quivering and every line in her countenance. "Oh, not to-night. Spare me to-night! After the trial; after my part of it. At least – after – after – oh, give me till to-morrow to think of it!"
"My dear Elinor, I count for nothing in it. I am not your judge; I am your partisan, you know, whatever you do. But I am sure it will be the better done, and even the easier done, the sooner you do it."
"I will – I will: at the very latest the day after I have done my part at the trial. Is not that enough to think of at one time, for a poor woman who has never stood up before the public in all her life, never had a question put to her? Oh, John! oh, John!"
"Elinor, Elinor! you are too sensible a woman to make a fuss about a simple duty like this."
"There speaks the man who has stood before the world all his life, and is not afraid of any public," she said, with a tremulous laugh. But she had won her moment's delay, and thus was victorious after a fashion, as it was her habit to be.
I do not know that young Philip much amused himself at Woolwich that day. He did and he did not. He could not help being interested in all he saw, and he liked the Marshalls well enough, and in ordinary circumstances would have entered very heartily into any sight-seeing. But he kept thinking all the time what his mother was doing, and wondering over the mysterious business which was to be explained to him sooner or later, and which he had so magnanimously promised to wait for the revelation of, and entertain no suspicions about in the meantime. The worst of such magnanimity is that it is subject to dreadful failings of the heart in its time of waiting – never giving in, indeed, but yet feeling the pressure whenever there is a moment to think. This matter mixed itself up so with all Philip saw that he never in after life saw a great cannon, or a pyramid of balls (which is not, to be sure, an every-day sight) without a vague sensation of trouble, as of something lying behind which was concealed from him, and which he would scarcely endure to have concealed. When he left his friends in the evening, however, it was with another engagement for to-morrow, and several to-morrows after, and great jubilation on the part of both father and son, as to their good luck in meeting, and having his companionship in their pleasures. And, in fact, these pleasures were carried on for several days, always with the faint bitter in them to Philip, of that consciousness that his mother was pleased to be rid of him, glad to see his back turned, the most novel, extraordinary sensation to the boy. And it must also be confessed that he kept a very keen eye on all the passing carriages, always hoping to see that one in which the witch, as he called her, and the girl with the keen eyes were – for he had not picked up the name of Lady Mariamne, keen as his young ears were, and though John had mentioned it in his presence, partly, perhaps, because it was so very unlikely a name. As for the man with the opera-glasses, he had not seen his face at all, and therefore could not hope to recognise him. And yet he felt a little thrill run through him when any tall man with grey hair passed in the street. He almost thought he could have known the tall slim figure with a certain swaying movement in it, which was not like anybody else. I need not say, however, that even had these indications been stronger, Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs were unlikely places in which to meet Lady Mariamne, or any gentleman likely to be in attendance on her. In Whitechapel, indeed, had he but known, he might have met Miss Dolly: but then in Whitechapel there were no sights which virtuous youth is led to see. And Philip's man with the opera-glass was, during these days, using that aid to vision in a very different place, and had neither leisure nor inclination to move vaguely about the world.