Spears talked little at this meal; he was full of the discouragement and mournful anger of disappointment. Up to the last moment he had hoped that Paul would change his mind—perhaps on the ground of his supposed love for Janet, if nothing else. But Paul had said nothing about Janet. He did not understand it, but it made his heart sore. The rest of the party were embarrassed enough, except Gus, who still thought this man with the heavy brows was an electioneering agent yet did not like to tackle him much, lest he should show his own ignorance of English policy—(“Decidedly I must read the papers and form opinions,” Gus said to himself); and Janet, who, seated at this beautiful table, with the flowers on it and all the sparkling glass and silver, and Charles waiting behind her chair, was sparkling with delight and pride. She was seated by the side of Sir Augustus, and spoke to him, calling him by that name. The dishes which were handed to her by the solemn assiduity of Mr. Brown were food for the gods, she thought, though they were simple enough. She made notes of everything for her own future guidance. It was just possible, M. Lisiere had said, that he might keep a page to wait upon his wife; thus the glory of a “man-servant” might still be hers. In imagination she framed her life on the model of Markham; and so full was her mind of these thoughts that Janet scarcely noticed Paul, who, on his side, paid no attention to her. As for Lady Markham, she was the soul of the party. She almost forgot her recent sorrow, and the sight of Sir Augustus at the other end of the table did not subdue her as usual. She asked Spears questions about his journey with the very wantonness of relief—that journey which she had shuddered to hear named, which had overshadowed her mind night and day was like a dead lion to her; she could smile at it now.
“Ay, my lady, that’s how it’s going to end,” said Spears. “I don’t say that it’s the way I could have wished. There was a time when the thought of new soil and a fresh start was like a new life to me. But perhaps it’s only because the time is so close, and a crisis has something in it that makes you think. It’s a kind of dying, though it’s a kind of new living too. Everything is like that, I suppose—one state ends and the other begins. We don’t know what we are going to, but we know what we’re giving up. Paul there—you see he has changed his mind. He had a right to change his mind if he liked—I am saying nothing against it. But that’s another sort of dying to me.”
“Oh, Mr. Spears, do not say so. To me it is new life. Did not I tell you once, if we were in trouble, if we needed him to stand by us (God knows I little thought how soon it would come true!), that my boy would never forsake his family and his position then? Paul might have left us prosperous,” said his mother with tears in her eyes, “but he would never leave us in sorrow and trouble. Mr. Spears, I told you so.”
And who can doubt that she spoke (and by this time felt) as if her confidence in Paul had never for a moment flagged, but had always been determined and certain as now?
And Spears looked at her with the respect of a generous foe who owned himself vanquished. “And so you did,” he said. “I remember it all now. My lady, you knew better—you were wiser than I.”
“Oh, not wiser,” she said, still magnanimous; “but it stands to reason that I should know my own boy better than you.”
Again he looked at her, respectful, surprised, half convinced; perhaps it was so. After all his pride and sense of power, perhaps it was true that the simplest might know better than he. He let a great sigh escape from his breast, and rose in his abstraction from the table, without waiting for the mistress of the house, which it was usually part of his careful politeness to do.
“We must be going,” he said; “our hours are numbered. Good-bye, my Lady Markham; you are a woman that would have been a stronghold to us in my class. I am glad I ever knew one like you; though you will not say the same of me.”
“Do not say that, Mr. Spears,” said Lady Markham again. It was true she had often been disposed to curse his name; and yet she would have said as he had said—she was glad she had ever known one like him. She put out her hand to him with a genuine impulse of friendship, and did not wince even when it was engulfed and grasped as in a vice by his strong and resolute hand.
“God bless you, my lady,” he said, looking at her with a little moisture coming by hard pressure into the corners of his eyes.