‘Gilbert took me,’ said Maurice, puzzled at the gravity, which convinced him that some one was in fault, and of course it must be himself.
‘Gilbert did very wrong,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘and henceforth you must learn that you must trust to your own conscience, and no longer believe that all your brother tells you is right.’
Maurice gazed in inquiry, and perceiving his brother’s downcast air, ran to his mother, crying, ‘Is papa angry?’
‘Yes,’ said Gilbert, willing to spare her the pain of a reply, ‘he is justly angry with me for having exposed you to temptation. Oh, Maurice, if I had been made such as you, it would have been better for us all!’
It was the first perception that a grown person could do wrong, and that person his dear Gilbert. As if the grave countenances were insupportable, he gave a long-drawn breath, hid his face on his mother’s knee, and burst into an agony of weeping. He was lifted on her lap in a moment, father and mother both comforting him with assurances that he was a very good boy, and that papa was much pleased with him, Mr. Kendal even putting the cannon into his hand, as a tangible evidence of favour; but the child thrust aside the toy, and sliding down, took hold of his brother’s languid, dejected hand, and cried, with a sob and stamp of his foot,
‘You shan’t say you are naughty: I wont let you!’
Alas! it was a vain repulsion of the truth that this is a wicked world. Gilbert only put him back, saying,
‘You had better go away from me, Maurice: you cannot understand what I have done. Pray Heaven you may never know what I feel!’
Maurice did but cling the tighter, and though Mr. Kendal had not yet addressed the culprit, he respected the force of that innocent love too much to interfere. The bell rang, and they went down, Maurice still holding by his brother, and when his uncle met them, it was touching to see the generous little fellow hanging back, and not giving his own hand till he had seen Gilbert receive the ordinary greeting.
Though Mr. Ferrars had been told nothing, he could not but be aware of the symptoms of a family crisis—the gravity of some, and the pale, jaded looks of others. Lucy was not one of these; she came down with little Albinia in her arms, and began to talk rather airily, excusing herself for not having come down in the evening because that ‘horrid ink’ had got into her hair, and tittering a little over the absurdity of her having picked up the inkstand in the dark. Not a word of response did she meet, and her gaiety died away in vague alarm. Sophy, the most innocent, looked wretched, and Maurice absolutely began to cry again, at the failure of some manoeuvre to make his father speak to Gilbert.