“If it is his right, he shall have it,” said Lady Markham, with a quiver in her voice. “Mr. Scrivener tells me we must resist no longer—and he is your brother, as he says, and we have no right to reject his kindness. Do you know, children,” she cried, suddenly clasping her hands together with an impatient movement, “while we are talking so much at our ease, it is not our own house we are in, but this gentleman’s house? He can turn us out of it whenever he pleases, while we are arguing whether we will let him come into it! Sir,” she said, rising up once more (but she had done it once; she could not again give him the title, which ought to have been Paul’s)—“Sir, I acknowledge that you are kind, generous—far more than we have any right to expect—but you will understand that such a position is not easy—that it is very strange to me—and very new, and——”
“Certainly, ma’am,” said Gus. Her politeness (as he called it to himself) put him on his mettle. “All you say is very true and just. If I were a little monster, as Alice thinks, there are a great many things I could do to make myself disagreeable; and if you were not a sensible woman, as I always felt you to be, we might make a very pretty mess between us. But as we are not fiends, but good Christians (I hope), suppose you let the little ones come down with me to the village to see after my things? It’s a nice afternoon, though a little dull. You ladies ought to go out too and take the air. My little dears,” he said, “we’ll have those big cases up; there are a lot of things in them I brought from Barbadoes expressly for you. And those sweetmeats—I told you of them the first time I came into this house.”
“You said they were for me,” said Marie, with a tone of reproach; “but that cannot have been true, for you did not know of me.”
Gus had put one hand in Bell’s arm and the other on Marie’s shoulder. He looked at his two little companions with the sincerest pleasure in his little brown face.
“I did not know you were Marie, nor that this was Bell: but I knew that you were you,” said the little gentleman, with a smile. “And,” he added, looking round upon them all, “I knew we must be friends sooner or later. Let’s go and see after the cases now.”
This was how it was all arranged, to the consternation and amazement of all the world; and Lady Markham was not less astonished than all the rest. She went to the Hall window when they were gone, and looked out after them, scarcely believing her senses. Sir Augustus Markham (as he must now be allowed to be) had put his arm into Bell’s, who was nearly as tall as he was, and who had forgotten all about the bump on her forehead and the tear in her frock; while Marie held his other hand, and skipped along by his side, now in front, now behind, looking up into his face and chattering to him. There was in Gus’s gait, in his trim little figure, and his personality in general, a something which was much more like Sir William than any of his other children. It had always been a little private source of gratification to Lady Markham, notwithstanding her sincere affection for her husband, that Paul was like the Fleetwoods, who were much finer men. But this resemblance, which she had not very much desired for her own children, had settled in the unknown offspring of his youth. It added now another pang to her heartache, not only to see how like he was, but to see how entirely the children had adopted their new, yet old, brother. She withdrew from the window in a bewilderment of pain and excitement. What would Paul say to the step she had taken? It was right, she had felt. She had done what was the hardest to do, because it seemed evident that it was the best; but what would Paul say? And now that all hope and resistance was over, and nothing to be done but to submit and make the best of it, what was to become of her boy? Lady Markham had not the solace of knowing of the change that had taken place in Paul’s mind. She expected nothing else than that her next meeting with Paul would be to take leave of him, to see him go away with his chosen associates; most likely the husband of Janet Spears, or about to become so. Could Janet Spears even now secure her son to her? bring him back? fix him in England?—at least within reach of her care and help? And should she—could she—do anything to persuade the girl to exercise her influence? That discussion, which had been broken by the sudden appearance of Bell, and this strange episode altogether, returned to her mind as she went sadly up stairs to consult with Mrs. Fry about the rooms to be made ready for Sir Augustus. Poor Lady Markham! she would have to speak of him by this name, and to acknowledge to the servants the downfall of her own son, the descent of her own family to a lower place—Sir William’s second family. It was hard—very hard—upon a woman who had been strong in a pride which had nothing bitter in it, so long as it had been unassailed, and all had gone well, but which gave her pangs now that were sufficiently difficult to bear. And then there was the dilemma in her heart still more difficult, still more painful. She had done what she thought was the best, at much cost to herself, in this matter; but ah, the other matter, which was still nearer her heart, how was she, torn as she was by diverse emotions, to know in Paul’s case what was the best?
It would be needless to attempt to describe the excitement raised in the household by the announcement that “Sir Augustus” was “coming home,” and that his rooms were to be got ready with all speed.
“My lady has give up the very best of everything,” Mrs. Fry said, solemnly; “and as considerate, thinking which was to be the warmest, seeing as he’s come from India, where it is that warm. It would not become us as are only servants, to be more particular than my lady, or else I don’t know that I could make it convenient to stay with a gentleman as has the blood of niggers in his veins.”
“I knowed it!” Mr. Brown said, slapping his thigh; he was usually more guarded in his language, but excitement carries the day over grammar even with persons of more elevated breeding. “The last time as ever I helped him on with his coat there was something as told me it was him that was the man, and not Paul. Well! I don’t say as I don’t regret it in some ways, but pride must have a fall, as the Bible says.”
“I don’t see as it lays in your spere to quote the Bible on a any such subject,” said Mrs. Fry with indignation. “If it’s Mr. Paul, I just wish he had a little more pride. His dear mother would be easier in her mind this day if he was one that held more by his own class. And if you’re pleased, you that have eat their bread this fifteen years, to have a bit of a little upstart that is only half an Englishman, instead of your young master that you’ve seen grown up from a boy—and as handsome a boy as one could wish to see—I don’t think much of your Christianity, and quoting out of the Bible. It’s easier a deal to do that than to perform what’s put down there.”