“Eh! well, we must not always dwell on one subject—must not dwell upon it. Let me see the boy.”
Mrs. Russell Penton rang the bell and gave a message, out of which it was almost impossible to keep an angry ring of impatience. “Tell the young gentleman who is in the drawing-room, he who arrived half an hour ago—you understand—that Sir Walter would like to see him. Show him the way.”
“Why don’t you speak of him by his name, Alicia? Young Mr. Penton, Mr. Walter Penton, my successor, you know, Bowker, that is to be. Say I seldom leave my room, and that I should be pleased to see him here. My dear,” he went on, “the servants always act upon the cue you give them, and they ought to be very respectful to the rising sun, you know. It is bad policy to set them out of favor with the rising sun.”
Alicia’s heart was too full for speech. She kept behind her father’s chair, arranging one or two little things which required no arrangement, keeping command over herself by a strong effort. A little more, she felt, and she would no longer be able to do this. That even the servants should have such a suggestion made to them, that Edward’s boy was the heir! Had her father departed from the resolution which was, she declared to herself passionately, his own resolution, not suggested by her? Had he forgotten? Was this some wavering of the mind which might invalidate all future acts of his? She felt on the edge of an outbreak of feeling such as had rarely occurred in her reserved and dignified life, and at the same time she felt herself turned to stone. The old man went on talking, more than usual, more cheerfully than usual, as if something exhilarating and pleasant was about to happen, but she paid little attention to what he said. She stood behind, full of a new and anxious interest, when the door opened and Wat, timid, but on his guard, not knowing what might be wanted with him, half defiant, and yet more impressed and awed than he liked to show, came into the room. Mrs. Russell Penton gave him no aid. She said, “This is Edward’s son, father.” It annoyed her to name him by his name, though there was no doubt that he had a right to it, as good a right as any one. She could not form her lips to say Walter Penton. But what she failed in Sir Walter made up. He half rose from his chair, which was a thing he rarely did, and held out both his hands. “Ah, Walter! I’m glad to see you, very glad to see you,” he said. He took the youth’s hands in those large, soft, aged ones of his, and drew him close and looked at him, as he might have looked at a grandson: and there was enough resemblance between them to justify the suggestion. “So this is Walter,” he went on, “I’m very glad to see you, my boy. You’re the last of the old stock—no, not the last either, for I hear there’s plenty of you, boys and girls, Alicia”—the old man’s voice trembled a little, tears came into his eyes, as they do so easily at his age—“Alicia, don’t you think he has a look of—of—another Walter? About the eyes—and his mouth? He is a true Penton. My dear, I’m very sorry if I’ve vexed you. I—I like to see it. I could think he had lived and done well and left us a son to come after him, my poor boy!”
And old Sir Walter for a moment broke down, and lifted up his voice and wept, running the little wail of irrepressible emotion into a cough to veil it, and swinging Wat’s hand back and forward in his own. Alicia stood as long as she could behind him, holding herself down. But when her father’s voice broke, and he called her attention to that resemblance, she could bear it no longer. She walked away out of the room without a word. Had she not seen it—that resemblance? and it was an offense to her, a bitter injury. He had neither lived nor done well, that other Walter, the brother of her love and of her pride. He had crushed her heart under his feet, beaten down her pride, torn her being asunder; and now to have it pointed out to her that this insignificant boy, who was not even to be the heir, whose birthright was being sold over his head, that he was a true Penton and like her brother! She could bear it no longer. Not even the recollection that this emotion might injure her father, that he wanted care to soothe him, sufficed to make her capable of restraining the passion which had seized possession of her. She went away quickly, silent, saying nothing. It was more than she could bear.
In the corridor she met her husband, between whom and her there was, she was conscious, a certain mist, also on account of this boy. Had all been as usual in other ways she would have passed him by with a sense in her heart of a certain separation and injury: but a woman must have some one to claim support from, and after all he was her husband, bound to stand by her, whatever questions might arise between them. She went up to him with an instinctive feeling of having a right to his sympathy in any case, even if he should disapprove, and put her hand within his arm with a hasty appealing movement, quite unusual with her. No man was more easily affected than Russell Penton by such an appeal. He put his hand upon hers, and looked at her tenderly. “What is it, my dear?” he said.
“Nothing, Gerald; except that I want to lean upon you for a moment because I have more than I can bear; though you disapprove of me,” she said.
He held her close to him, full of pity and tenderness. “Lean, Alicia, whether I approve or disapprove;” and he added, “I know that all this is hard upon you.” He sympathized with her at least, if not with the tenor of her thoughts.
She made no further explanation, nor did he ask for it. After a moment she said, “Gerald, do you know whether a sudden change of mind, abandoning one way of thinking for another, is supposed to be a bad sign—of health, I mean?”
He paused a moment and looked at her, with an evident question as to whether it was she who had changed her mind. But that look was enough to show that, though she was suffering she was firm as ever, and a glance she gave toward the closed door of the library enlightened him. “I should not think it was a very good sign—of health,” he said.