Part 1, Chapter XXV.
Where Cyril Went.
Mrs Mallow’s cry of horror as, after struggling for the first time for many years into an upright posture, she fell back, fainting, had the effect of bringing father and son back to their senses. Another second and Cyril’s clenched hand would have struck down the author of his birth; but at that cry his arm fell to his side, and he stood there trembling with excitement as the Rector quitted his hold, and flung himself upon his knees by the couch.
He rose again on the instant to obtain water and the pungent salts which were close at hand, striving with all the skill born of so many years’ attendance in a sick room to restore the stricken woman to her senses.
Frank had already left the house, but the cry brought Julia and Cynthia into the room.
“Oh, mamma, mamma!” wailed Julia, and she too busied herself in trying to revive the stricken woman.
Not so Cynthia, who took in the situation at a glance, and burst into a passion of sobs, which she checked directly, and with flushed face and flashing eyes she crossed to her brother.
“This is your doing,” she cried; “you will kill mamma before you’ve done; and Harry might have been here and heard all this. Cyril, I hate you; you’re as wicked as Frank;” and to her brother’s utter astonishment she struck him sharply in the face.
“Little fool!” he growled fiercely, as he caught her by the wrist, but only to fling her off with a contemptuous laugh. He made no motion to help, but stood with frowning brow and bitter vindictive eye watching his parents alternately; but though he went to and fro many times, and passed close to his son, the Rector never once looked at him, seeming quite to ignore his presence there.
Constant efforts had their due effect at last, for the unhappy mother uttered a low wailing cry, and then, as her senses returned and she realised her position, she began to sob bitterly, clinging to her husband as he knelt by her, bending his face down upon her hands as he held them tightly in his own.
From where Cyril stood he could see his father’s face, that it was deadly pale, and that his lips were moving rapidly as if in prayer, and thus all stayed for some little time, till the laboured sobbing of the invalid died off into an occasional catching sigh.
At last she unclosed her eyes, to fix them appealingly upon her son, her lips moving, though no audible words followed; but the look of appeal and the direction of her pathetically expressive eyes told her wishes as she glanced from Cyril to the carpet beside her couch—told plainly enough her wishes, and the young man read them aright—that he should come there and kneel down at his father’s side.
“Not I,” he muttered. “The old madman! How dare he raise his hand to me like that!”
He thrust his hands in his pockets and remained there with a look mingled of contempt and pity upon his face as he watched the prostrate figure of his father, while, as his mother’s appealing eyes were directed to him again and again, he merely replied to the dumbly-uttered prayer by an impatient shake of the head.
At last the Rector raised his eyes, and as he met his wife’s agonised look, he smiled gently, and then bent over her and kissed her brow.
“It is passed, my love,” he whispered. “God forgive me, I did not think I could have sunk so low.”
Julia passed her arm round her sister, and drew her to the window, to lay her head upon her shoulder and weep silently and long.
“Cyril,” said the Rector, in a broken voice, as he rose and stood before his son, “you have tried me hard, but I have done wrong. My temper gained the better of me, and I have been praying for strength to keep us both from such a terrible scene again. Come down with me to the study, and let us talk of the future like sentient men. God forgive me, my boy; I must have been mad.”
He held out his trembling hands, and Cyril saw that he was evidently labouring under great emotion, as he absolutely humiliated himself before his son, his every look seeming to ask the young man’s forgiveness for that which was past. But Cyril’s anger was, if not hotter, more lasting than his father’s, and rejecting the offer of peace between them, he swung round upon his heels and strode out of the room.
For a few minutes there was absolute silence, as mother and father gazed at the door through which the son had passed. Then, with a piteous sob, Mrs Mallow exclaimed—
“Oh, Eli, Eli, what have we done?”
“Commenced the reaping of the crop of weeds that are springing up in our sons’ neglected soil. Laura, I have tried to be a good father to our boys, but my weakness seems to stare me now in the face. I have been fond and indulgent, and now, Heaven help me, I have been weaker than ever in trying to amend the past by an outbreak of foolish violence.”
“Go to him; ask him to come back,” sobbed the mother.
“Did I not humble myself to him enough?” said the Rector, with a pathetic look at his wife.
“Yes, yes, you did,” she wailed; “but this is all so dreadful. Eli, it will break my heart.”
“And yet I ought to be strong and stern now, sweet wife,” he said tenderly. “Authority has long been thrown to the winds. Had I not better strive hard to gather up the reins and curb his headlong course?”
“It will break my heart,” the unhappy woman sobbed. “It is so dreadful—so horrible to me, love. Eli, husband—my patient, loving husband, bring him back to me or I shall die.”
“I will fetch him back, Laura,” said the Rector, softly, as he bent down once more and kissed the cold, white forehead of his wife.
Then, rising with a sigh, he softly moved towards the door, turning once to smile at the troubled face he left behind.
As he turned, the suffering woman held out her arms, and he walked back quietly to sink upon his knees by her side.
“Pray,” she said, softly. “Pray for help and guidance in this storm.” And once more there was silence in the room.
“He is our boy,” whispered Mrs Mallow, as the Rector rose. “Be patient with him, Eli, and all will yet be well. Indeed, indeed, he is good and true of heart. See how tenderly he waits on me.”
“Just for a minute, now and then,” the Rector thought; “and only when it does not clash with some selfish object of his own.” And then he fell to thinking of his own years upon years of constant watchfulness and care, and smiled sadly as he saw how that at times the little far outshone the great.
But nothing in his countenance betokened aught but the tenderest sympathy and love for her he was leaving behind, as, once more going to the door, the Rector passed through, and descended to his study, leaving Mrs Mallow weeping in her daughters’ arms.
Here he shut himself in for a few minutes, and rapidly paced the floor, holding his hands the while to his rugged brow.
“It is too much—it is too much!” he groaned, panting with the great emotion to which his soul was prey. “If it was not for my girls! If it was not for my girls!”
Then he threw himself into his chair, and sat leaning forward with his fingers seeming to be driven into the soft padding of the arms, which he clutched with fierce vehemence.
But by degrees the gust of passion passed over, leaving him calm and cool as, once more rising, he smoothed his countenance, and went out of the room in search of Cyril.
He was not in the dining-room, nor yet in the little room where he was in the habit of sitting to read and smoke, while the state of the garden was not such as to induce him to wander there.
The Rector went up softly to his son’s room, but without finding him; and at last he went into the dining-room and rang the bell.
“Where is Mr Cyril?” the Rector asked.
“He went out about half-an-hour ago, sir.”
“With Mr Frank?”
“No, sir; Mr Frank went out before that.”
“Did he say what time he would be back?”
“No, sir; but Williams came in just now, sir, with Lord Artingale’s mare for Miss Cynthia.”
“Yes?”
“And said he met Mr Cyril in the lane leading to Kilby Farm.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, sir; and he was walking up and down as if he expected somebody to come.”