The Story of Valentine and His Brother

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Does anybody know?” he asked.

“We have taken every precaution,” said Lady Eskside. “We gave it out he had been called away by you on family business. I drove into Edinburgh myself, and went to the telegraph office on foot, Richard, and gave them the family name—no title, as you would see, that the telegraph people might not know—for how could I tell if they might spread it? I don’t think anything is suspected out of doors, but I could not say for the servants. They always find out what is doing. They read it in your face, in the hour you go to bed, in the way you take your dinner. That Margaret Harding knows I am unhappy is plain enough; but I am not sure that she knows what is the cause.”

“Oh, you may take that for granted too,” said Richard; “they find out all one is thinking. Never mind, mother; everything in this world is like the dew. It dries up and disappears, so that you could not tell where it had been. Now tell me what clue you have, and where you think he is likely to have gone.”

“We have no clue at all,” said the old lady. “Had he gone to see any of his friends we should have heard of him ere now; and had he gone abroad, Richard, he would have gone to you. That is one of the hardest things of all—we don’t know where to look for him. Your father is in London, wandering about.”

“Did you ever think of Oxford?” said Richard.

“Oxford?—what would he do in Oxford? He has no friends he is fond of there. His friends were lads of his own standing, who left Oxford when he did. It never occurred to me; but, my dear, if you think it’s a likely place, we’ll send there at once.”

Lady Eskside put out her hand to ring the bell. If Siberia or Egypt had been suggested to her, I think she would have rung the bell all the same, and directed some one at a half-hour’s notice to go.

“What are you going to do, mother? do you mean to send Harding to Oxford to look for Val?”

She smiled a forlorn smile as she saw the foolishness of her instinctive movement; and then Richard explained to her that he would go, having some reasons of his own for thinking it possible that Val might have gone to Oxford, as well as some business to do there in his own person. “But you will let no business detain you if you do not find the boy?” Lady Eskside said, and listened with an impatience she could not conceal while Richard explained that business must be done whatever Valentine might do. “Besides, you don’t think that a young man like Valentine—a newly elected member of Parliament, and your grandson—can be lost like a child, mother?” he said, half laughing, though he was not without anxiety too. I am afraid the old lady felt his ease, and gentle way of taking this tremendous calamity, jar upon her; and she was so anxious that he should set out at once to look for her lost child, that Richard was affronted too, and with some reason. He was less annoyed by her evident preference of Val to himself than he had been fifteen years ago; but it still struck him half whimsically, half painfully. He remained all night after his long journey, almost against her will. She could think of nothing but Val; and when he was ready to start next day, all that she said and seemed to think was about her darling. “You will telegraph to me at once, if you hear anything? Oh, my dear, think how hard it is to be left here in the quiet, hearing nothing, not able to do anything, but wait!” she said; and was restless all the morning, and afraid that he would be late for the train. Richard could not help making a few reflections on the subject as he went away. He was not so deeply attached to his son as to tremble for his safety as Lady Eskside did: and he was not so much devoted to his mother as to feel very deeply her abandonment of himself altogether, and substitution of Valentine in his stead. But in his comparative calm he noted and made reflections on the subject more than he could have done had his interest been more deeply engaged. It was a curious psychological inquiry to him;—and at the same time he felt it a little. It gave him an odd prick which he had not expected. “After all,” he said to himself, “the Palazzo Graziani is the place for me.”

He set out for Oxford about noon. His mother could scarcely forgive him that, because of mere unwillingness to be disturbed a little earlier than usual, he had missed the early train. “Oh,” she said to herself, “when would I have been kept from my boy for the sake of an hour’s longer lie in the morning!” She was relieved to get him out of the house at last, bearing a hundred messages for Val if he should be found, and under solemn charges to telegraph at once to her the result of his mission—glad, very glad, to get him out of the house, though he was her only son, whom she had not seen for years. I suppose few things could make a man feel more small than the fact that his mother was absolutely indifferent to him,—could scarcely even see him, indeed, except by the borrowed light of his son. Richard went away smiling to himself over this curious fact, but slightly wounded at the same time, and set off for Oxford with many thoughts in his heart. He was letting himself drift unconsciously to the place in which that woman was. Should he see her? and if he saw her, should he make himself known to her? or what would happen? He could not tell. There was no love, not even the ashes of a dead one, in his heart. What could that love be which Richard Ross once felt for a tramp-girl, without education of any kind—a fair weed without any soul? It had dried up and left no remnant behind. But he was curious, very curious; what had time done, perhaps, for the creature whom he had been able to do nothing for? “Looks as if she had been a lady once.” These careless words of Val’s had influenced his father more than anything more serious. He wanted to know how this strange result had come about.