Part 7 (1/2)
”Never beggar,” said Philip, with a pride that showed what hard lessons he had yet to learn. ”The lawful sons of a Beaufort were not born to beg their bread!”
CHAPTER VI.
”The storm above, and frozen world below.
The olive bough Faded and cast upon the common wind, And earth a doveless ark.”--LAMAN BLANCHARD.
Mr. Robert Beaufort was generally considered by the world a very worthy man. He had never committed any excess--never gambled nor incurred debt--nor fallen into the warm errors most common with his s.e.x. He was a good husband--a careful father--an agreeable neighbour--rather charitable than otherwise, to the poor. He was honest and methodical in his dealings, and had been known to behave handsomely in different relations of life. Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what was right--in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action but that which the world supplied; his religion was decorum--his sense of honour was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial to which the world was the sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered every purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was invisible, the dial was mute--a piece of bra.s.s and nothing more.
It is just to Robert Beaufort to a.s.sure the reader that he wholly disbelieved his brother's story of a private marriage. He considered that tale, when heard for the first time, as the mere invention (and a shallow one) of a man wis.h.i.+ng to make the imprudent step he was about to take as respectable as he could. The careless tone of his brother when speaking upon the subject--his confession that of such a marriage there were no distinct proofs, except a copy of a register (which copy Robert had not found)--made his incredulity natural. He therefore deemed himself under no obligation of delicacy or respect, to a woman through whose means he had very nearly lost a n.o.ble succession--a woman who had not even borne his brother's name--a woman whom n.o.body knew. Had Mrs.
Morton been Mrs. Beaufort, and the natural sons legitimate children, Robert Beaufort, supposing their situation of relative power and dependence to have been the same, would have behaved with careful and scrupulous generosity. The world would have said, ”Nothing can be handsomer than Mr. Robert Beaufort's conduct!” Nay, if Mrs. Morton had been some divorced wife of birth and connections, he would have made very different dispositions in her favour: he would not have allowed the connections to call him shabby. But here he felt that, all circ.u.mstances considered, the world, if it spoke at all (which it would scarce think it worth while to do), would be on his side. An artful woman--low-born, and, of course, low-bred--who wanted to inveigle her rich and careless paramour into marriage; what could be expected from the man she had sought to injure--the rightful heir? Was it not very good in him to do anything for her, and, if he provided for the children suitably to the original station of the mother, did he not go to the very utmost of reasonable expectation? He certainly thought in his conscience, such as it was, that he had acted well--not extravagantly, not foolishly; but well. He was sure the world would say so if it knew all: he was not bound to do anything. He was not, therefore, prepared for Catherine's short, haughty, but temperate reply to his letter: a reply which conveyed a decided refusal of his offers--a.s.serted positively her own marriage, and the claims of her children--intimated legal proceedings--and was signed in the name of Catherine Beaufort. Mr.
Beaufort put the letter in his bureau, labelled, ”Impertinent answer from Mrs. Morton, Sept. 14,” and was quite contented to forget the existence of the writer, until his lawyer, Mr. Blackwell, informed him that a suit had been inst.i.tuted by Catherine.
Mr. Robert turned pale, but Blackwell composed him.
”Pooh, sir! you have nothing to fear. It is but an attempt to extort money: the attorney is a low pract.i.tioner, accustomed to get up bad cases: they can make nothing of it.”
This was true: whatever the rights of the case, poor Catherine had no proofs--no evidence--which could justify a respectable lawyer to advise her proceeding to a suit. She named two witnesses of her marriage--one dead, the other could not be heard of. She selected for the alleged place in which the ceremony was performed a very remote village, in which it appeared that the register had been destroyed. No attested copy thereof was to be found, and Catherine was stunned on hearing that, even if found, it was doubtful whether it could be received as evidence, unless to corroborate actual personal testimony. It so happened that when Philip, many years ago, had received a copy, he had not shown it to Catherine, nor mentioned Mr. Jones's name as the copyist. In fact, then only three years married to Catherine, his worldly caution had not yet been conquered by confident experience of her generosity. As for the mere moral evidence dependent on the publication of her bans in London, that amounted to no proof whatever; nor, on inquiry at A----, did the Welsh villagers remember anything further than that, some fifteen years ago, a handsome gentleman had visited Mr. Price, and one or two rather thought that Mr. Price had married him to a lady from London; evidence quite inadmissible against the deadly, d.a.m.ning fact, that, for fifteen years, Catherine had openly borne another name, and lived with Mr.
Beaufort ostensibly as his mistress. Her generosity in this destroyed her case. Nevertheless, she found a low pract.i.tioner, who took her money and neglected her cause; so her suit was heard and dismissed with contempt. Henceforth, then, indeed, in the eyes of the law and the public, Catherine was an impudent adventurer, and her sons were nameless outcasts.
And now relieved from all fear, Mr. Robert Beaufort entered upon the full enjoyment of his splendid fortune.
The house in Berkeley Square was furnished anew. Great dinners and gay routs were given in the ensuing spring. Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort became persons of considerable importance. The rich man had, even when poor, been ambitious; his ambition now centred in his only son. Arthur had always been considered a boy of talents and promise; to what might he not now aspire? The term of his probation with the tutor was abridged, and Arthur Beaufort was sent at once to Oxford.
Before he went to the university, during a short preparatory visit to his father, Arthur spoke to him of the Mortons. ”What has become of them, sir? and what have you done for them?”
”Done for them!” said Mr. Beaufort, opening his eyes. ”What should I do for persons who have just been hara.s.sing me with the most unprincipled litigation? My conduct to them has been too generous: that is, all things considered. But when you are my age you will find there is very little grat.i.tude in the world, Arthur.”
”Still, sir,” said Arthur, with the good nature that belonged to him: ”still, my uncle was greatly attached to them; and the boys, at least, are guiltless.”
”Well, well!” replied Mr. Beaufort, a little impatiently; ”I believe they want for nothing: I fancy they are with the mother's relations.
Whenever they address me in a proper manner they shall not find me revengeful or hardhearted; but, since we are on this topic,” continued the father smoothing his s.h.i.+rt-frill with a care that showed his decorum even in trifles, ”I hope you see the results of that kind of connection, and that you will take warning by your poor uncle's example. And now let us change the subject; it is not a very pleasant one, and, at your age, the less your thoughts turn on such matters the better.”
Arthur Beaufort, with the careless generosity of youth, that gauges other men's conduct by its own sentiments, believed that his father, who had never been n.i.g.g.ardly to himself, had really acted as his words implied; and, engrossed by the pursuits of the new and brilliant career opened, whether to his pleasures or his studies, suffered the objects of his inquiries to pa.s.s from his thoughts.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Morton, for by that name we must still call her, and her children, were settled in a small lodging in a humble suburb; situated on the high road between Fernside and the metropolis. She saved from her hopeless law-suit, after the sale of her jewels and ornaments, a sufficient sum to enable her, with economy, to live respectably for a year or two at least, during which time she might arrange her plans for the future. She reckoned, as a sure resource, upon the a.s.sistance of her relations; but it was one to which she applied with natural shame and reluctance. She had kept up a correspondence with her father during his life. To him, she never revealed the secret of her marriage, though she did not write like a person conscious of error. Perhaps, as she always said to her son, she had made to her husband a solemn promise never to divulge or even hint that secret until he himself should authorise its disclosure. For neither he nor Catherine ever contemplated separation or death. Alas! how all of us, when happy, sleep secure in the dark shadows, which ought to warn us of the sorrows that are to come! Still Catherine's father, a man of coa.r.s.e mind and not rigid principles, did not take much to heart that connection which he a.s.sumed to be illicit.
She was provided for, that was some comfort: doubtless Mr. Beaufort would act like a gentleman, perhaps at last make her an honest woman and a lady. Meanwhile, she had a fine house, and a fine carriage, and fine servants; and so far from applying to him for money, was constantly sending him little presents. But Catherine only saw, in his permission of her correspondence, kind, forgiving, and trustful affection, and she loved him tenderly: when he died, the link that bound her to her family was broken. Her brother succeeded to the trade; a man of probity and honour, but somewhat hard and unamiable. In the only letter she had received from him--the one announcing her father's death--he told her plainly, and very properly, that he could not countenance the life she led; that he had children growing up--that all intercourse between them was at an end, unless she left Mr. Beaufort; when, if she sincerely repented, he would still prove her affectionate brother.
Though Catherine had at the time resented this letter as unfeeling--now, humbled and sorrow-stricken, she recognised the propriety of principle from which it emanated. Her brother was well off for his station--she would explain to him her real situation--he would believe her story.
She would write to him, and beg him at least to give aid to her poor children.
But this step she did not take till a considerable portion of her pittance was consumed--till nearly three parts of a year since Beaufort's death had expired--and till sundry warnings, not to be lightly heeded, had made her forebode the probability of an early death for herself. From the age of sixteen, when she had been placed by Mr.
Beaufort at the head of his household, she had been cradled, not in extravagance, but in an easy luxury, which had not brought with it habits of economy and thrift. She could grudge anything to herself, but to her children--his children, whose every whim had been antic.i.p.ated, she had not the heart to be saving. She could have starved in a garret had she been alone; but she could not see them wanting a comfort while she possessed a guinea. Philip, to do him justice, evinced a consideration not to have been expected from his early and arrogant recklessness. But Sidney, who could expect consideration from such a child? What could he know of the change of circ.u.mstances--of the value of money? Did he seem dejected, Catherine would steal out and spend a week's income on the lapful of toys which she brought home. Did he seem a shade more pale--did he complain of the slightest ailment, a doctor must be sent for. Alas! her own ailments, neglected and unheeded, were growing beyond the reach of medicine. Anxious fearful--gnawed by regret for the past--the thought of famine in the future--she daily fretted and wore herself away. She had cultivated her mind during her secluded residence with Mr. Beaufort, but she had learned none of the arts by which decayed gentlewomen keep the wolf from the door; no little holiday accomplishments, which, in the day of need turn to useful trade; no water-colour drawings, no paintings on velvet, no fabrications of pretty gewgaws, no embroidery and fine needlework. She was helpless--utterly helpless; if she had resigned herself to the thought of service, she would not have had the physical strength for a place of drudgery, and where could she have found the testimonials necessary for a place of trust? A great change, at this time, was apparent in Philip. Had he fallen, then, into kind hands, and under guiding eyes, his pa.s.sions and energies might have ripened into rare qualities and great virtues. But perhaps as Goethe has somewhere said, ”Experience, after all, is the best teacher.” He kept a constant guard on his vehement temper--his wayward will; he would not have vexed his mother for the world. But, strange to say (it was a great mystery in the woman's heart), in proportion as he became more amiable, it seemed that his mother loved him less. Perhaps she did not, in that change, recognise so closely the darling of the old time; perhaps the very weaknesses and importunities of Sidney, the hourly sacrifices the child entailed upon her, endeared the younger son more to her from that natural sense of dependence and protection which forms the great bond between mother and child; perhaps too, as Philip had been one to inspire as much pride as affection, so the pride faded away with the expectations that had fed it, and carried off in its decay some of the affection that was intertwined with it.
However this be, Philip had formerly appeared the more spoiled and favoured of the two: and now Sidney seemed all in all. Thus, beneath the younger son's caressing gentleness, there grew up a certain regard for self; it was latent, it took amiable colours; it had even a certain charm and grace in so sweet a child, but selfishness it was not the less. In this he differed from his brother. Philip was self-willed: Sidney self-loving. A certain timidity of character, endearing perhaps to the anxious heart of a mother, made this fault in the younger boy more likely to take root. For, in bold natures, there is a lavish and uncalculating recklessness which scorns self unconsciously and though there is a fear which arises from a loving heart, and is but sympathy for others--the fear which belongs to a timid character is but egotism--but, when physical, the regard for one's own person: when moral, the anxiety for one's own interests.
It was in a small room in a lodging-house in the suburb of H---- that Mrs. Morton was seated by the window, nervously awaiting the knock of the postman, who was expected to bring her brother's reply to her letter. It was therefore between ten and eleven o'clock--a morning in the merry month of June. It was hot and sultry, which is rare in an English June. A flytrap, red, white, and yellow, suspended from the ceiling, swarmed with flies; flies were on the ceiling, flies buzzed at the windows; the sofa and chairs of horsehair seemed stuffed with flies. There was an air of heated discomfort in the thick, solid moreen curtains, in the gaudy paper, in the bright-staring carpet, in the very looking-gla.s.s over the chimney-piece, where a strip of mirror lay imprisoned in an embrace of frame covered with yellow muslin. We may talk of the dreariness of winter; and winter, no doubt, is desolate: but what in the world is more dreary to eyes inured to the verdure and bloom of Nature--,