“Was he so simple as to think ill news would not travel?” Gervase said, with a faint smile. “Tell me, Madeline, where is my father? Perhaps you know.”
“Nobody knows,” she said, shaking her head; “but there is no reason why that should be bad news, Gervase. Papa says he quite understands it; he thinks Mr Burton will come back—after a while. He thinks he wants to put a little interval between him and all these events. He says he quite understands his feelings. Gervase——”
“Yes, dear. I can’t feel anything, I can’t say anything. I am half paralysed, and half mad. Think how things were when I went away: and to come back and find everything gone—disappeared as if it had never been: the dreadful empty mockery of a house which they say is mine, and my father, and all that he cared for, gone, gone like a dream. Sometimes I think I will go crazy,—everything seems to be whirling and unsteady. I am giddy with pain and confusion and ignorance, and the blank all around.”
He held her hand, but loosely, languidly, in a feeble clasp. She grasped his tightly, closely, as if to bring him back to himself.
“All that he cared for is not gone. Let my father tell you. He knows the right thing to say. Oh, Gervase, because you are in great trouble, don’t turn all love and tenderness away!”
“Madeline!”
“Oh, Gervase, if you only knew how I have thought of you night and day! I think I should have gone to you had there been any certainty where you were. I should not have let anything stand in the way, when you were in trouble. Don’t turn from me now. Papa is coming back from the office to lunch, on the chance of your arrival. He wants to do everything that is kind. Don’t, don’t turn from us, Gervase, because you are in trouble, which is only a reason for clinging together. Is it not a reason for clinging together?” she cried, with tears in her eyes.
And poor Gervase felt that he ought to feel above every other sentiment the sweetness of this consolation, for which he had so thirsted and hungered in his long misery at sea; thinking that just like this his Madeline would speak and look. But now that she was there before him, in his arms, speaking like Love itself, looking with eyes full of the tenderest sympathy, he was no longer able to feel anything. He caressed her clinging hand, but his natural impulse would have been to relax his hold, to put it away; not that he loved her less, but that the confusion in his mind, the fevered condition of his whole being, was incapable of any natural or happy sentiment. The miserable change that had come over all his private concerns, the ruin of his family, his father’s disappearance, even that curious maddening contradiction, in the midst of all the ruin, of the unchanged house, which he was told was his, filled up his thoughts, his heart, his very veins, so that there was room in him for nothing else.
Mr Thursley appeared soon after for luncheon, and his coming was a relief. He gave Gervase a coherent account of everything that had happened. Mr Thursley was evidently not without an impression that Burton, Baber, & Co. had been in a doubtful condition for some time; but he described with considerable vehemence the action of young Wickham, the risky transactions into which his impetuosity had drawn his partner, and the extravagance he had committed, his head turned by the greatness of the position which he thought he had attained—evidently with the intention of diverting the mind of Gervase from any unfilial thoughts. When the crash came eventually, he described how entirely honourable and digne the attitude of Mr Burton had been. The ultimate catastrophe had been brought about by the failure of one or two companies with which the house had become connected. Mr Burton had at once placed everything he had at the disposal of his creditors. His books, his private affairs, his property to the last penny, had been made available; and his honourable conduct had been fully acknowledged and warmly applauded. Offers had been made to him, on all sides, of help to begin anew his commercial career; but these offers had been gratefully declined. He had said that he was himself too old for a fresh start, and that his son was not disposed, or perhaps adapted, for a business life. Finally, all had been settled, and as a proof of their admiration for Mr Burton’s conduct and character, the creditors had requested his acceptance of the house and all its contents, upon which no profane hand had ever been laid.