Sophia’s birthday fell in the last week before Christmas, and it had always been the family custom to drink tea with Mrs. Meadows. Albinia made the engagement with a sense of virtuous resignation, though not feeling well enough for the infliction, but Mr. Kendal put a stop to all notion of her going. She expected to enjoy her quiet solitary evening, but the result was beyond her hopes, for as she was wishing Gilbert good-bye, she heard the click of the study lock, and in came Mr. Kendal.
‘I thought you were gone,’ she said.
‘No. I did not like to leave you alone for a whole evening.’
If it were only an excuse to himself for avoiding the Meadows’ party, it was too prettily done for the notion to occur to his wife, and never had she spent a happier evening. He was so unusually tender and unreserved, so desirous to make her comfortable, and, what was far more to her, growing into so much confidence, that it was even better than what she used last year to picture to herself as her future life with him. It even came to what he had probably never done for any one. She spoke of a beautiful old Latin hymn, which she had once read with her brother, and had never seen adequately translated, and he fetched a manuscript book, where, written out with unrivalled neatness, stood a translation of his own, made many years ago, full of scholarly polish. She ventured to ask leave to copy it. ‘I will copy it for you,’ he said, ‘but it must be for yourself alone.’
She was grateful for the concession, and happy in the promise. She begged to turn the page, and it was granted. There were other translations, chiefly from curious oriental sources, and there were about twenty original poems, elaborated in the same exquisite manner, and with a deep melancholy strain of thought, and power of beautiful description, that she thought finer and more touching than almost anything she had read.
‘And these are all locked up for ever. No one has seen them.’
‘So. When I was a young lad, my poor father put some lines of mine into a newspaper. That sufficed me,’ and he shut the clasped book as if repenting of having revealed the contents.
‘No, I was not thinking of anything you would dislike with regard to those verses. I don’t like to let in the world on things precious, but (how could she venture so far!) I was thinking how many powers and talents are shut up in that study! and whether they might not have been meant for more. I beg your pardon if I ought not to say so.’
‘The time is past,’ he replied, without displeasure; ‘my youth is gone, and with it the enterprise and hopefulness that can press forward, insensible to annoyance. You should have married a man with freshness and energy more responsive to your own.’
‘Oh, Edmund, that is a severe reproach for my impertinent speech.’
‘You must not expect too much from me,’ he continued. ‘I told you that I was a broken, grief-stricken man, and you were content to be my comforter.’
‘Would that I could be so!’ exclaimed Albinia, ‘but to try faithfully, I must say what is on my mind. Dear Edmund, if you would only look out of your books, and see how much good you could do, here in your own sphere, how much the right wants strengthening, how much evil cries out to be repressed, how sadly your own poor suffer—oh! if you once began, you would be so much happier!’
She trembled with earnestness, and with fear of her own audacity, but a resounding knock at the door prevented her from even discovering whether he were offended. He started away to secure his book, and the two girls came in. Albinia could hardly believe it late enough for their return, but they accounted for having come rather earlier by saying that Gilbert had been making himself so ridiculous when he had come at last, that grandmamma had sent him home.
‘At last!’ said Albinia. ‘He set off only ten minutes after you, as soon as he found that papa was not coming.’
‘All I know,’ said Lucy, ‘is, that he did not come till half-past nine, and said he had come from home.’
‘And where can he be now?’
‘Gone to bed,’ growled Sophy.
‘I don’t know what he has been doing,’ said Lucy, who since the suspicion of favouritism, had seemed to find especial pleasure in bringing forward her brother’s faults; ‘but he came in laughing like a plough-boy, and talking perfect nonsense. And when Aunt Maria spoke to him, he answered quite rudely, that he wasn’t going to be questioned and called to order, he had enough of petticoat government at home.’
‘No,’ said Sophy, breaking in with ungracious reluctance, as if against her will conveying some comfort to her step-mother for the sake of truth, ‘what he said was, that if he bore with petticoat government at home, it was because Mrs. Kendal was pretty and kind, and didn’t torment him out of his life for nothing, and what he stood from her, he would not stand from any other woman.’
‘But, Sophy, I am sure he did say Mrs. Kendal knew what she was going to say, and said it, and it was worth hearing, and he laughed in Aunt Maria’s face, and told her not to make so many bites at a cherry.’
‘He must have been beside himself,’ said Albinia, in a bewilderment of consternation, but Mr. Kendal’s return put a stop to all, for the sisters never told tales before him, and she would not bring the subject under his notice until she should be better informed. His suffering was too great, his wrath too stern, to be excited without serious cause; but she spent a wakeful, anxious night, revolving all imaginable evils into which the boy could have fallen, and perplexing herself what measures to take, feeling all the more grieved and bound to him by the preference that, even in this dreadful mood, he had expressed for her. She fell into a restless sleep in the morning, from which she wakened so late as to have no time to question Gilbert before breakfast. On coming down, she found that he had not made his appearance, and had sent word that he had a bad headache, and wanted no breakfast. His father, who had made a visit of inspection, said he thought it was passing off, smiling as he observed upon Mrs. Meadows’s mince-pie suppers and home-made wine.
Lucy said nothing, but glanced knowingly at her sister and at Albinia, from neither of whom did she get any response.
Albinia did not dare to take any measures till Mr. Kendal had ridden out, and then she went up and knocked at Gilbert’s door. He was better, he said, and was getting up, he would be down-stairs presently. She watched for him as he came down, looking still very pale and unwell. She took him into her room, made him sit by the fire, and get a little life and warmth into his chilled hands before she spoke. ‘Yes, Gilbert, I don’t wonder you cannot lift up your head while so much is on your mind.’
Gilbert started and hid his face.
‘Did you think I did not know, and was not grieved?’
‘Well,’ he cried, peevishly, ‘I’m sure I have the most ill-natured pair of sisters in the world.’
‘Then you meant to deceive us again, Gilbert.’
He had relapsed into the old habit—as usual, a burst of tears and a declaration that no one was ever so badly off, and he did not know what to do.
‘You do know perfectly well what to do, Gilbert. There is nothing for it but to tell me the whole meaning of this terrible affair, and I will see whether I can help you.’
It was always the same round, a few words would always bring the confession, and that pitiful kind of helpless repentance, which had only too often given her hope.
Gilbert assured her that he had fully purposed following his sisters, but that on the way he had unluckily fallen in with Archie Tritton and a friend, who had driven in to hear a man from London singing comic songs at the King’s Head, and they had persuaded him to come in. He had been uneasy and tried to get away, but the dread of being laughed at about his grandmother’s tea had prevailed, and he had been supping on oysters and porter, and trying to believe himself a fast man, till Archie, who had assured him that he was himself going home in ‘no time,’ had found it expedient to set off, and it had been agreed that he should put a bold face on it, and profess that he had never intended to do more than come