Chapter Fifteen.
Jack Expresses an Opinion.
It was afternoon the next day before he left London, and past dark when he reached the Hetherton station. But the day had been fairly fine, and there was nothing in the evening to prevent his walking the two or three miles which lay between the station and the house, while his portmanteau was to come after him in the carrier’s cart. He lingered a little, especially when he had crossed the sandy common and got down among the sturdy Scotch firs, so that, what with listening to the rustling of the wind in their tops, and the brawling of the swollen river, as he passed in at the lodge he heard the little clock striking seven, the dinner hour at the Court.
Jack was a favourite with all the servants, and the old butler bustled out from the dining-room directly he heard who had arrived, and sent a young footman off with orders about the room.
“You’ll like to wash your hands, Mr John, and I’ll let master know you’re come.”
“Anyone dining here, Jones?”
“Only one gentleman, sir.”
There was no time for more. Jack went up the broad stairs, two or three at a time, and coming down more leisurely, walked into the dining-room and found himself face to face with Mr and Mrs Thornton and—Oliver Trent.
Jack would have been more discomposed had he not heard of this acquaintanceship from Clive, but as it was, the meeting annoyed him, and he did not trouble himself to conceal the feeling. Oliver was prepared, and wore a passive countenance. Mr Thornton, who liked Jack as well as, and his own will very much better than, he liked anybody, was divided between welcome and displeasure.
“Upon my word, Jack, upon my word, you take us by surprise. Come for Christmas, eh? Well, fortunately a visitor more or less does not make much difference to Mrs Thornton, and your room is no doubt ready. But a carriage should have met you if you had acquainted us. How did you come?”
“I walked from the station, and my things were put into old Brook’s cart.”
He knew that Mr Thornton hated old Brook’s cart, and there was partly a mischievous desire to tease him, and partly a wish to show Oliver Trent that he held very lightly the grandeur and riches of the Court.
Mrs Thornton interposed. She was always interposing with kindly attempts to smooth down her husband, and an utter want of tact which made the smoothing produce the contrary effect.
“How did you leave Phillis?” she said.
“Why did you leave her? would be more to the purpose,” snorted Mr Thornton, under his breath.
“She was very well,” said Jack, quietly helping himself to cucumber. “And as to why I came, it was on a little matter of business, and partly to look after a protégé or cousin of yours, Mr Trent, unless I’m mistaken—Clive Masters.”
Oliver Trent’s face could not turn pale, but it changed to an indescribable shade of colour which answered the same purpose, and gave Ibbetson a moment of delight.
“Masters?” repeated Mr Thornton. “Isn’t that the clerk you were speaking of?”
“I presume it is,” said Trent, recovering himself with an effort, “although I am at a loss to conceive how my interest for him and Mr Ibbetson’s should run in an identical line?”
“And I am afraid I cannot enlighten you,” said Jack. “Perhaps they don’t. At any rate I can only answer for my own.”
There was a little silence. Oliver Trent had no desire to force explanations, and Mr Thornton looked at the young fellow with a feeling which was partly pride and partly exasperation. He could never think that he impressed Jack as he would have liked to impress him, but the oddest part was that in his heart he envied his imperturbability, and the ease of manner to which he had never attained. Not that he was not a gentleman by birth. He was a new man in Surrey, but the Thorntons were a good old family, and he had a right to good manners and good breeding; perhaps it was that very fact which made him sore over the consciousness that he had neither. Money had been his aim in life, and he had an exaggerated respect for its value, but his pleasure in it was a good deal marred by his having sufficient acuteness to perceive when others held it in small account, and he could neither forgive them, nor in his heart of hearts help respecting them for their indifference. He got more dislike than was really his due. To Jack, both as man and boy, he had indeed been very kind, and yet Jack sometimes almost detested him. At this moment as he looked across the table, sparkling with silver and valuable glass, he wondered how Phillis had ever endured her life, and yet more how she had lived it and still preserved that simplicity and quiet self-possession to which his eyes had lately seemed to open. Mr Thornton, with his bald head, insignificant features, and pompous manner, looked to him more vulgar than ever. Evidently Oliver Trent was a favourite. Ibbetson said no more about Clive, but set himself with something like amusement to watch Trent’s skilful treatment of his host. He deferred to him on all subjects, but not in any manner which should give the suspicion of open flattery, rather expressing at first a difference of opinion, and gradually allowing himself to be as it were convinced by Mr Thornton’s arguments. He showed, also, a delicate appreciation of wealth. Neither dinner nor wines were lost upon him, but his praise was discriminating, and implied reserve. Jack felt as if he were the spectator of some admirably played game of skill, the more so that Oliver took no pains to ingratiate himself with him, rather treating his comparative youth as something to be looked upon with condescension which was not without contempt.
The evening passed heavily. Mrs Thornton wished to pet Jack, and was always irritating her husband, so that at last she got up with a sigh and went off to bed. Mr Thornton himself crossed his legs, leaned his head back against the crimson satin chair and fell asleep; Jack laid down the Times which he had been studying deeply, and walked towards Oliver Trent.
“As we have met here,” he said, “will you give me five minutes’ conversation in the next room?”
“Conversation? Oh, certainly.”
A heavy portière separated the rooms; that which they now entered, less gorgeous in itself, and less glaringly lit, was one in which Phillis often sat; her piano was in a corner, and a sudden remembrance struck Jack of the evening when she had been at the window, and had gone out to him at his request. A dark flush rose to his forehead at the recollection; how changed were his thoughts of her since then, and yet by the strange irony of fate, or more truly by his own folly, then she was his, and now they were separated—for ever? Oliver Trent, watchful and composed, threw himself into a great chair; Ibbetson stood with his back to the fire. Moved by these thoughts, he was less at his ease than he had been throughout the evening, but it was he who had asked for the conversation, and he who had first to speak.
“I saw young Masters last night,” he began.
“So I gathered. Did you find your interview worth the trouble it had cost you?”
“You mean a journey from Rome? I think so.”
“Indeed! Your mission then may be considered fortunate.”
Trent’s soft voice was touched with scorn, perhaps a little more strongly than he would have permitted had it been under perfect control, but Jack took no notice. He repeated, “I think so. I believe I shall now be able to remove some misunderstandings which have been causing his family considerable anxiety and pain. You will allow me to add that it strikes me as a pity that you ever suffered the misunderstandings to exist.”
“I certainly shall not allow you to add anything which implies that you have the right to interfere with what relates to the private concerns of my own family,” said Trent hotly.
“I am afraid the veto, if it rested in your hands, would be applied too late,” said Jack with a cool scorn which stung the older man. “My advice has been already given.” And then he made a step forward on the rug, and a sudden fire flashed into his eyes which few persons had ever seen there. “You are in my uncle’s house as his guest, and that, Mr Trent, prevents me from speaking as plainly as I might otherwise do. But it does not hinder my thinking, and I leave you to imagine what is my opinion of a man who has suffered three helpless women, in a foreign land, to endure all the anguish of believing that their son and brother had sunk into a villain when a word from him would have lifted the load from their hearts. Suffered, did I say? Rather himself raised the suspicion in their hearts, and nursed it there.”
The contempt in the young man’s tone was unmistakable. When Trent answered, it was as if he struggled to use the same weapons and could not bring them to bear.
“May I enquire from whom you have gathered these remarkable facts?”
“From those who were interested,” replied Jack after a momentary pause. He did not wish to bring in Bice’s name, but Oliver understood whom he meant, and became almost livid. He started up.
“And it is you who venture to bring such scandalous accusations—you, whose conduct in Florence was so unworthy the name of gentleman that if Mr Thornton, with his high and honourable character, was acquainted with it, he would not, I believe, tolerate you in his house! I repudiate your charge. It is false. If my cousins mistook my warnings, it is not my fault. The word you have used never passed my lips—”
Jack interrupted him.
“It could not. But you implied it.”
“Implied!”
“Yes. To women who were terrified at shadows—and no wonder. What did they know about possibilities or proofs?”
“Until you enlightened them,” said Oliver with a sneer. “Pray, Mr Ibbetson, do you habitually indulge in romances of this description?”
Jack treated this speech with lofty indifference.
“I have said my say, and there’s an end of it I suppose,” he said, turning to the fire, and pushing a log with his foot. He went on speaking with his back turned to Trent. “I intended to let you know my opinion, and have done so; as for the others who are mixed up in the matter, they can form their own as they please.”
“I have something of my own for you to listen to, though,” Trent answered, recovering his coolness. “Your opinions are of too small importance for me to treat this impertinence as it perhaps deserves. Probably it arises from pique, and I may afford to pity it. But if we come to opinions I can give you my own hot and strong. I should like to hear what any honourable man would say of a gentleman who, engaged to one lady, not only flung away her affections, but deliberately insulted her by trying to gain those of another who was already pledged. Eh, Mr Ibbetson? Is this cock-and-bull story your last hope?”
There was enough truth in this speech for it to sting, and Jack felt an instinctive conviction that it was spoken for an auditor, and that if he looked round he should see Mr Thornton standing in the doorway. There he actually was, and the anger and perplexity in his red face were so ludicrously strong, that Jack’s anger was choked in an inclination to laugh.
“What is that you say, Trent? Be good enough to repeat it,” he said, coming forward and waving back the chair which Jack pushed forward.
“It is a private matter between your nephew and myself,” said Trent, as if reluctantly.
“Private? Nonsense. You alluded to an affair in which I am as much interested as anyone. I knew there was something of which I had not been informed. Both of you were aware I was within hearing, so now I insist upon hearing properly. Well, sir?”
The last interrogation was addressed loudly to Jack, who was leaning against the chimney-piece in an easy attitude which seemed like a personal affront to his uncle. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“Mr Trent was speaking, sir, not I.”
“Do you suppose I require to be told that? Mr Trent was speaking, and he was saying things which you should be ashamed of anyone having the power of saying,” said Mr Thornton, angrily.
“Excuse me. Not of any one. The force of an accusation altogether depends upon who makes it,” said Jack, with a haughty look at the other.
“If you will allow me, Mr Thornton,” said Trent rising, “I will wish you good-night. Your nephew would naturally prefer to offer his explanations alone with you. I exceedingly regret my own rashness of speech.”
“Stop, sir!” said Mr Thornton, bringing down his closed fist on his knees with a thump. “I manage matters in my own house in my own way. Let me hear what you have to say, and let me hear what he has to say, and then I shall know something of where we all are.”
“You must make allowances for my feeling sore,” said Oliver, still apologetically, “as the other lady to whom I alluded is my promised wife.”
“Now is that the truth or a lie?” reflected Ibbetson. “If it’s the truth I had better have left the matter alone.”
“Do you mean that he tried to make her jilt you, while he himself jilted Phillis Grey?” demanded Mr Thornton strongly. All Jack’s indifference was shaken. He stepped forward, drawing himself up to his full height, and his face was resolute and stern.
“I see no use in dragging Miss Grey’s name into this discussion,” he said, with a determination which impressed his uncle in spite of himself; “but since you and Mr Trent have done so, you will be good enough to understand that the facts have not been correctly represented. At the time of which he speaks, he was certainly not engaged to Miss Capponi, and as for my acting towards Miss Grey as you suppose, though I am perhaps a fool, I am not such an utter fool as that would prove me. That is sufficient for to-night, I think. Good-night, Uncle Peter,” and he marched out of the room, with his head rather high, and without a glance at Oliver.
No one stopped him; his uncle would have liked to have done so, but was not sure that in his present mood he would have attended to his wishes. Mr Thornton looked after the young fellow with an anger that was partly envy. Trent got up.
“I regret this very much,” he said in his soft tone. “He made an uncalled-for attack upon me, and I lost my temper and retaliated, without knowing that you were present.”
“Didn’t you see me?” said Mr Thornton simply. “Well, what you said explained a good deal. I never believed Phillis would have set all my wishes aside.” Then, as Trent remained silent, he went on—“However, they both of them know the alternative. When I have made up my mind I don’t change.”
“No, you have an enviable force of determination. I believe it to be the secret of your success.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said Mr Thornton, rising also, and shaking himself as if he would have thus got rid of a lingering compunction. “I’m a plain man, and I keep to my word. None of your shilly-shallying for me, and that Master Jack will learn, in spite of his confounded airs. Good-night, Trent.”