A Poor Gentleman

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Go! where is he to go?”

“To find Walter,” they all cried together.

“It is killing you,” said Lady Penton. “Let the young man—who doesn’t feel as we do, who doesn’t think of it as we do—let him go, Edward. It seems so dreadful to us, but not to him. He thinks that probably there is nothing dreadful in it at all, that it is a thing that—a thing that—boys do: they are so thoughtless—they do it, meaning no particular harm.”

“There is something in that,” said Sir Edward, with relief. “I am glad you begin to see it in that way, my dear. It is more silly than wrong—I have thought so all along.”

“That is what Mr. Rochford says. He is a young man himself. He thinks the boy will never have considered—and that as soon as he thinks, as soon as he finds out—Edward, we mustn’t be tragical about it. I see it now as you say. Stay at home—you have so many things to think of—and let the young man go. They understand each other between themselves,” Lady Penton said, with a somewhat wan smile.

And then Sir Edward began to relax a little. “Rochford is right there,” he said. “It is perhaps a good thing to have a man’s view. You, of course, were always unduly frightened, my dear. As for not writing, that is so common a thing—I could have told you all that. But, naturally, seeing you in such a state has affected me. When you are married,” he said, turning to Rochford with a faint smile, “you will find that though you may think it weak of her, or even silly, the color of your thoughts will always be affected by your wife’s.”

This speech produced a curious little momentary dramatic scene which had nothing to do with the question in hand. Rochford’s eyes instinctively flashed a glance at Ally, who, though hers were cast down, saw it, and flamed into sudden crimson, the consciousness of which filled her with shame and confusion. Her blush threw a reflection instantaneous, like the flash of a fire, over him, and lighted up his eyes with a glow of delight, to conceal which he too looked down, and answered, with a sort of servile respect, “I have no doubt of it whatever, sir; and it ought to be so.”

“Well, perhaps theoretically it ought to be so,” Sir Edward said, who noticed nothing, and whose observation was not at any time quick enough to note what eyes say to eyes. Now that it was all explained and settled, and he felt that it was by his wife’s special interposition that Rochford had been taken into favor, there could be no doubt that it was a comfort to have a man, with all the resources of youth and an immediate knowledge of that world which Sir Edward was secretly aware he had almost forgotten, to take counsel with. His spirits rose. His trouble had been greatly intensified by that sensation of helplessness which had grown upon him as he wandered about the London streets, sick at heart, obstinate, hopeless, waiting upon chance, which is so poor a support. This day he had been more hopeless than ever, feeling his impotence with that sickening sense of being able to do nothing, to think of nothing, which is one of the most miserable of sensations. It was so far from true that he had taken the color of his thoughts from his wife, or felt Walter’s absence more lightly than she had done, that it was he who had been the pessimist all along, whose imagination and memory had furnished a thousand stories of ruin and the destruction of the most hopeful of young men, and to whom it was almost impossible to communicate any hopefulness. But a partnership of any kind is of great use in such circumstances, and above all the partnership of marriage, in which one can always put the blame upon the other with the advantage of being himself able to believe that the matter really stands so. Lady Penton did not complain. She was willing enough to bear the blame. Her own heart was much relieved by Rochford’s cheerful intimation that Walter’s little escapade was the commonest thing in the world, and most probably meant nothing at all. If it might but be so! If it were only his thoughtlessness, the folly of a boy! At least if that could not be believed it was still a good thing and most fortunate that people should think so, and the man who suggested it endeared himself to the mother’s heart.

And then another and more expansive consultation began. On ordinary occasions Sir Edward allowed himself to be questioned, giving brief answers, sometimes breaking off impatiently, shutting himself up in a troubled silence, from which an unsatisfactory scrap of revelation unwillingly dropped would now and then come. Sometimes he drove them all away from him with the morose irritation of his unsuccess. What did it matter what he had done in town, when it all came to nothing, when it was of no consequence, and brought no result? But to-day he spoke with a freedom which he had never shown before. Everything was more practical, more possible. The new agent had to be informed of all the facts upon which perhaps his better knowledge of such matters might throw new light. Sir Edward confessed that he had extracted from old Crockford the address of the girl’s mother, “Though I could not allow—though I mean I feel sure that the boy never mixed himself up with people of that sort,” he added, with his little air of superiority; then described Mrs. Sam Crockford to them, and her declaration that she knew nothing of the young gentleman. In his heart of hearts Sir Edward did not believe this any more than Rochford did, but it gave him a countenance, it supported his new theory, the theory so adroitly suggested to him that Walter after all was probably not much to blame. This theory was a greater consolation than can be told to all of them. Not much to blame! Careless only, amusing himself, a thing which most youths of his age did somehow or other. “Of course,” Rochford said, “there are some preternatural boys who never tear their pinafores or do anything they ought not to do.” Thus he conveyed to their minds a suggestion that it was in fact rather spirited and fine of Walter to claim the emancipation which was natural to his kind. The load which was thus lifted from their gentle bosoms is not to be described. Lady Penton indeed knew better, but yet was so willing to be deceived, so ready to be persuaded! And Sir Edward knew—oh, a great many variations of the theme, better and worse—but yet was willing too to take the young man’s word for it, the young man who belonged to Walter’s generation and knew what was in the minds of the boys as none of the others could do. He brought comfort to all their hearts, both to those who had experience of life and those who had none, by his bold assumption of an easy knowledge. “I have no doubt, if truth were told, he is dying to come home,” Rochford said, “and very tired of all the noise and nonsense that looks so pleasant at a distance. I know how one feels in such circumstances—bored to death, finding idleness and the theaters and all that sort of thing the dreariest routine, and yet ashamed to own it and come back. Oh, he only wants to see a little finger held up to him from home, I know!” said the young fellow, with a laugh. He did himself the greatest injustice, having been all his life of the order of those who have the greatest repugnance to dirtying their pinafores. But love and policy, and pity as well, inspired him, and his laugh was the greatest comfort in the world to all those aching hearts. He took down Mrs. Sam Crockford’s address, and all the information which could be given to him; the very sight of his little note-book inspiring his audience with confidence. “The thing for me to do,” he said, “is to take him myself the money he wants. Though the address he gives is only at a post-office I shall find him out—and perhaps take a day or two’s amusement in his company,” he added, with a smile.

“Oh, Mr. Rochford, that would be kindness indeed!” Lady Penton said.