Erema - My Father's Sin, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [read me a book TXT] 📗

as he became the man to do them--also, when I remembered what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the shape of Sir Montague, who went to and fro, but could never be trusted to be far off, I resolved to do what I had long been thinking of, and believed that my guardian, if he had lived another day, would have recommended. I resolved to go and see Lord Castlewood, my father's first cousin and friend in need.

When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they both declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of advising, which, however, they had forborne from doing because I never took advice. At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I could not help smiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage opinion that, before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and ask his leave to do so. For that would have made it quite a rude thing to call, as I must still have done, if he should decline beforehand to receive me. Moreover, it would look as if I sought an invitation, while only wanting an interview. Therefore, being now full of money again, I hired the flyman who had made us taste the water, and taking train at Newport, and changing at two or three places as ordered, crossed many little streams, and came to a fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a few miles above Reading.

In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and tribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small feelings, as for the first time I drew near to the home of my forefathers. I should have been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or lying in a hole, or even modern or insignificant; and when none of these charges could be brought against it, I was filled with highly discreditable pain that Providence had not seen fit to issue me into this world in the masculine form; in which case this fine property would, according to the rules of mankind, have been mine. However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat down on a bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.

The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to shape it, so as not to spoil the site. It stood near the brow of a bosoming hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from the rigor and fury of the north and east; while in front the sloping foreground widened its soft lap of green. In bays and waves of rolling grass, promontoried, here and there, by jutting copse or massive tree, and jotted now and then with cattle as calm as boats at anchor, the range of sunny upland fell to the reedy fringe and clustered silence of deep river meadows. Here the Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and courtesy, yet with will of its own ways, being now a plenteous river, spreads low music, and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields, casting afar a broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulous infinitude of flash.

Now these things touched me all the more because none of them belonged to me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got up with much better heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever it might be. A girl brought up in the real English way would have spent her last shilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the station--a most sad machine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in a more becoming manner.

One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as quietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's. If any body had been rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that sort, my spirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually happens then, good reason to go down afterward. But happily there was nothing of the kind. An elderly man, without any gaudy badges, opened the door very quietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke, for asking me to speak softly. It was one of his lordship's very worst days, and when he was so, every sound seemed to reach him. I took the hint, and did not speak at all, but followed him over deep matting into a little room to which he showed me. And then I gave him a little note, written before I left Bruntsea, and asked him whether he thought that his master was well enough to attend to it.

He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father well, having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked whether my message was important. I answered that it was, but that I would wait for another time rather than do any harm. But he said that, however ill his master was, nothing provoked him more than to find that any thing was neglected through it. And before I could speak again he was gone with my letter to Lord Castlewood.


CHAPTER XXXII


AT HOME

Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force their remembrance upon me. Such dark figures always seem to make the most of a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to fluttering fear and small misgivings. There any body seems to lie, as a stranded sailor lies, at the foot of perpendicular cliffs of most inhuman humanity, with all the world frowning down over the crest, and no one to throw a rope down. Often and often had I felt this want of any one to help me, but the only way out of it seemed to be to do my best to help myself.

Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and knowing that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's strength. He might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me with kind feeling; but if he wanted to do more, surely he might have tried ere now. But my thoughts about this were cut short by a message that he would be glad to see me, and I followed the servant to the library.

Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair, uncushioned and uncomfortable. When he saw me near him he got up and took my hand, and looked at me, and I was pleased to find his face well-meaning, brave, and generous. But even to rise from his chair was plainly no small effort to him, and he leaned upon a staff or crutch as he offered me a small white hand.

"Miss Castlewood," he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery voice, "for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to hear of you. I have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense of want of energy; yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do my best to think so."

"I am sure you have," I replied, without thinking, knowing his kindness to my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to Mr. Shovelin about him. "I owe you more gratitude than I can tell, for your goodness to my dear father. I am not come now to trouble you, but because it was my duty."

While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could walk, to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have had few chances. And in every step and word and gesture I recognized that foreign grace which true-born Britons are proud to despise on both sides of the Atlantic. And, being in the light, I watched him well, because I am not a foreigner.

In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm face, which might in good health have been powerful--a face which might be called the moonlight image of my father's. I could not help turning away to cry, and suspicion fled forever.

"My dear young cousin," he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to, "your father trusted me, and so must you. You may think that I have forgotten you, or done very little to find you out. It was no indifference, no forgetfulness: I have not been able to work myself, and I have had very deep trouble of my own."

He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down when thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were those of a learned and intellectual man. How I knew this it is impossible to say, for I never had met with such a character as this, unless it were the Abbe of Flechon, when I was only fourteen years old, and valued his great skill in spinning a top tenfold more than all his deep learning. Lord Castlewood had long, silky hair, falling in curls of silver gray upon either side of his beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft dark eyes was sad, gentle, yet penetrating. Weak health and almost constant pain had chastened his delicate features to an expression almost feminine, though firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine will and fortitude. And when he spoke of his own trouble (which, perhaps, he would not have done except for consolation's sake), I knew that he meant something even more grievous than bodily anguish.

"It is hard," he said, "that you, so young and healthy and full of high spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin the best years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in such a cloud of gloom and shame."

"There is no shame at all," I answered; "and if there is gloom, I am used to that; and so was my father for years and years. What is my trouble compared with his?"

"Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards the mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load; you are a young and a sensitive woman. The burden may even be worse for you. Now tell me all about yourself, and what has brought you to me."

His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath it. He had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor plied me at all with those pious allusions, which even to the reverent mind are like illusions when so urged. Lord Castlewood had too deep a sense of the will of God to know what it is; and he looked at me wistfully as at one who might have worse experience of it.

Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met mine, I told him every thing I could think of about my father and myself, and all I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were set upon getting to the bottom of every thing. And while I spoke with spirit, or softness, or, I fear, sometimes with hate, I could not help seeing that he was surprised, but not wholly displeased, with my energy. And then, when all was exhausted, came the old question I had heard so often, and found so hard to answer--

"And what do you propose to do next, Erema?"