“You know as well as I do there is no train after eight o’clock. Compose yourself,” said Sir William. “Nothing more than what has already happened can happen to him to-night.”
“We might get the express at Bluntwood—the train papa generally goes by—if we were to start at once” cried Alice, with her hand on the bell, her eyes turning from her father to her mother. The eager women on each side of him made the greatest contrast to the head of the house. Had Paul been dying instead of simply in a problematical danger, Sir William Markham would not have consented to leave his home in this headlong way, or take any step upon which he had not reflected. He waved his hand impatiently.
“You had much better go to bed,” he said, “and don’t worry yourself about a matter in which for the present none of us can do anything. I will go to-morrow. Sit down, Alice! Do you think Paul would thank you if you arrived breathless in the middle of the night? Try to look at the matter coolly. Excitement never does any good. I will go and see if he will listen to reason—to-morrow.”
To-morrow! It seemed to both mother and sister as if a thousand calamities, too terrible to think of, might be happening, might have happened, before to-morrow; and on the other hand, how, they asked each other with a pitiful interchange of looks, were they themselves to live through the night? No feeling of this description moved Sir William. He was very much disturbed and annoyed, but certainly it would do no good to any one were he to render himself unfit for action by foolish anxiety. Nor did he feel any of that vague horror of apprehension which filled their minds. He was a great deal more angry and much less alarmed about his son’s well-being. On the other hand, he was less sanguine; for he did not hope that Paul would listen to reason, as they hoped that by their entreaties, by their tears, by the sight of the misery his resolution would bring them, Paul might relent and give way. After a while Sir William returned to his library and to his blue-books, and the official letter which he had only half-read, which he had suffered himself to be so much influenced by parental feeling as to leave in the middle; and though he paused now and then to frown and sigh, and give a thought aside to the troubles of paternity, yet he went on with his work, and gave all the attention that was necessary to the public business, until his usual hour for going to bed.
Lady Markham and Alice spent their evening in a very different way; they read their letter over twenty times at least; they found new meanings in every sentence of it. Hidden things seemed to be brought out, emotions, penitences, relentings, by every new perusal. Sometimes these discoveries plunged them into deeper trouble—sometimes raised them to sudden hope. How little Paul was conscious of the subtle shades of meaning they attributed to him! They were like commentators in all ages; they found a thousand ideas he had never dreamed of lurking in every line of their author; and with all these different readings in their heads spent a sleepless night.
CHAPTER X.
Paul Markham was not in his rooms. The porter at the college gate looked curiously upon the party of people who asked after him. It was not the time of year when college authorities interfere with undergraduates; neither was a virtuous young man “staying up to read” likely to call forth their censures. The porter could not give them any information as to where to find Paul; the party (he thought) looked anxious, just as he had seen people look whose son had got into trouble: the father with wrinkles in his forehead, but an air of business and anxious determination to look as if there was nothing particular in it—nothing but an ordinary visit; the mother with a redness about her eyes, but a smile, very courteous, even conciliatory, to the porter himself, and so sorry to give him trouble; and an eager young sister clinging to the mother, looking anxiously about, staring at every figure she saw approaching.
“Here’s a gentleman, sir, as can tell you, if any one can,” the porter said. All three turned round simultaneously to look at the person thus indicated. He was a young man of not very distinguished appearance, who came carelessly across the quadrangle in a rough coloured suit, with a pipe in his mouth. He came along swinging his cane, smoking his pipe, not thinking of what awaited him. However, those three pairs of eyes affected him unawares. He looked up and saw the little group, and instinctively withdrew his pipe from his mouth. He had just slipped it quickly into the pocket of his loose jacket, and was trying to steal through the party under cover of a messenger who was passing, when Sir William stepped forward and addressed him—
“This man tells me,” he said, “that you are a friend of my son, Paul Markham, and can perhaps give us some information where to find him.”
While the father spoke, the two ladies looked at the young man with eyes half-investigating, half-imploring. He felt that they were making notes of his rough clothes, his pipe, which alas! they had seen going into his pocket, and of a general aspect which was not very decorous, and forming opinions unfavourable, not only to himself, but to Paul; while, at the same time, they were entreating him with soft looks to tell them where Paul was, and somehow—they could not tell how—to reassure them on his account.