The Story of Valentine and His Brother

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Yes, ma’am—my lady—I suppose it was me——”

“That worked so well, and raised yourself in the world? that he was going to see always, till some fool, some meddling fool that knew no better,” cried Lady Eskside, “wrote to my old lord to stop it? But I thank God I did not stop it!” said my lady, the tears running down her cheeks. “I thank the Lord I had confidence in my boy! Richard! it was you that all this happened about? You are sure it was you?”

“There could not be two of us,” he said, his face lighted up with feeling; for Dick, good fellow, though he did not know why she was crying, felt something rise in his throat at the sight of the old lady’s tears. “Yes, ma’am—I mean, my lady.”

“Don’t call me my lady, my bonnie man! call me—but never mind—we’ll wait awhile; we’ll do nothing rash,” cried Lady Eskside. “You’re hungry and tired all this time, while I’ve been thinking of myself and of Val, and not of you. Come and have something to eat, Richard; and then you’ll take me to my boy.”

But Lady Eskside was two or three years over seventy. She was worn out with anxiety, and now with the sudden excitement of this visitor. She had taken neither food nor sleep, much as her years required all natural support, since Val had disappeared; and before her preparations could be made, she herself allowed that to attempt to travel by the night train would be foolish and unavailing. “I don’t want to die before it’s all settled,” she said, smiling and crying. “We’ll have to wait till to-morrow.” And Dick, who had travelled all night, was very willing to wait. She sat by him and talked to him while he had his meal, and for an hour or more after; and though Dick was not stupid, he was a child in the hands of the clever old lady, who recovered all her spirit now that her anxiety was removed, and this wonderful power of setting everything right was put into her hands. Lady Eskside was but human, and, so far as she was aware, no one but herself had the faintest inkling of this blessed way of clearing up the troubles of the family, or knew anything of Dick Brown and his mother. She felt that she had found it out, that it would be her part to clear it all up, and the thought was sweet to her. And as for her anxiety, Dick made so light of Valentine’s illness, which he had himself ceased to be alarmed about, that Lady Eskside felt almost happy to hear of the fever which supplied her with a reason for Val’s silence without communicating any alarm to her mind. Very soon she knew everything about Dick,—more than he knew himself—his tramp-life, his wanderings with his mother, his longings for something better, for a home and settled dwelling-place. And Dick, without knowing, made such a picture of his mother as touched the old lady’s heart. “She used to sit at the window and watch for the boat. That was the first thing that reconciled her a bit,” said Dick. “She used to watch and watch for Mr Ross’s boat, and sit like a statue when we’d started him, to see him come back. She always took a deal of interest in Mr Ross.”

“Did she ever tell you why?”

“Because he was so kind,” said Dick. “I’ve thought often there was more in it than that; but what could a fellow say to his mother, ma’am? I wasn’t one to worry her with questions. That’s how she used to sit watching. Mother is strange often; but there never was any harm in her,” said Dick, fervently—“never! The others would hold their tongues when she was by—I’ve thought of it often since; and when she saw my heart was set on settling down, she gave into it, all on my account—though what she liked was different. That is what I call a good woman!” he cried, encouraged by the attention and sympathy with which his story was received. Lady Eskside thus learnt more in an hour of the woman who had cost her so dear, than she could have done otherwise in years. She found out everything about her. She even got to feel for and pity the mother—ignorant, foolish, unwitting what harm she was doing—who thus kept to her savage point of honour, and never betrayed herself nor claimed her son. Dick, unconscious, told everything. It was only on thinking it over after that he remembered again his mother’s charge not to say anything of her. “Say only it’s your mother.” Well! he said to himself, he had said no more. It was as his mother that he had spoken of her, and as that alone. He knew her in no other character. He had spoken of her life, her habits, her goodness; but he had told nothing more. There was not, indeed, anything more to tell, had he wished to betray her.

In the afternoon, Lady Eskside was persuaded to go and rest—a repose which she wanted mightily—and Dick was left alone. It was then that he began to think that possibly he had been indiscreet in his revelations; and he was somewhat frightened, to tell the truth, when he found himself left in the great drawing-room alone. He did not know whether it would be right for him to wait there, where Lady Eskside left him, until she came back. He felt a little doubtful whether he might examine the great cabinets, and all the curious things he saw, and which fired him with interest. He could not do them any harm, at last he reflected; and he did not think the kind old lady would object. So he got out his note-book, and made little drawings of various things that struck his fancy. The wonder being over for the moment, and the pressure of Lady Eskside’s questions, Dick’s mind gladly retired from it altogether, and returned to easier everyday matters. That this discovery, whatever it was, should make any difference in his life, did not seem to him at all a likely idea; nor did such a notion seriously enter his mind. And no thought of the possible transference of his own lowly and active life to such surroundings as those which were now about him, ever occurred to Dick. He would have been extremely amused by the idea. But he made a note in his book—a rough little drawing, yet quite enough to be a guide to him—of sundry little “details”—arrangements of brackets and shelves, which he thought might be adapted even to his little place on a small scale. He had his eyes always about him, ready to note anything of the kind; and though he smiled to himself at the idea of copying in his tiny parlour what he saw in this great room, yet he made his drawings all the same, with his rough workman’s pencil. The drawings were very rough, but he knew how to work from them, and in his mind’s eye already saw a homely imitation of the objects he admired figuring upon his low walls. He even thought it would amuse Val, when he got better, to see in the boatman’s parlour a humble copy of the brackets in Rosscraig.

And after this, as one of the windows was open, he strayed out, with some perturbation, lest he should be taking too much upon him, and wandered through the shrubberies, and out into the woods. It was a soft spring afternoon, the sun near its setting, the trees showing a faint greenness, the sound of the Esk filling the air. The river was full and strong, swelled by the spring rains, and by the melting of all the early frosts. It made a continuous murmur, filling the whole soft universe around with an all-pervading sound. Dick had almost forgotten what the woods were like in the early spring; and the charm of the stillness and the woodland rustle, the slanting lines of light, the bright gleams of green, the tender depths of shadow, stole into his heart. He had a still, profound, undemonstrative enjoyment of nature, loving her without being able to put his love into words; and the beauty of those irregular banks, all broken with light and shade, topped with trees which threw up their tall columns towards the sky, waiting till the blessing of new life should come upon them—delighted the young man, who for years had known no finer scenery than the unexciting precincts of the Thames. Dear Thames, kind river, forgive the words!—ungrateful words to come from the lips of one who owes thee untold pleasures; but soft meadows and weeping willows, and all the gentle lights and shadows of the level stream, looked tame beside the foaming, tumbling river, rushing with shouts among its rocks, singing over its pebbles, leaping and hurrying onward through all those bold braes that hemmed it in, and played perpetual chase and escape with the brown torrent. The trees on Eskside were not the grand broad placid trees to which Dick was used. Red firs, with the sun on their great russet pillars; white birches, poising daintily on every fairy knowe; pale ash-trees, long-limbed and bare—mixed with the few oaks and beeches, and gave a different character to the scene; and here and there a bold bit of brown rock, a slip of red earth, the stony course of a burn which went rattling in hot haste to join the Esk, crossing the path and toppling down in dozens of tiny waterfalls—all these were like nothing he had ever seen before. He strayed on a little further and a little further, by bypaths of which Val knew every curve and corner, under trees, every one of which, could they have spoken, would have asked for news of their young lord. Sometimes it occurred to him, with a sense of additional pleasure, that all this would one day belong to his young patron. Would Val ever ask him to come here, he wondered? then “Lord bless me!” said Dick to himself, “why should he?” “He’ll always be kind and good as long as he lives; but why should he ask the like of me?” and he laughed at his own absurdity. But what with these thoughts, and what with no thought at all, mere pleasure, which perhaps carries farthest, he went on, much farther than he knew, as far as the linn and the two great beeches which had played so great a part in Val’s life. Just before he reached that point he was stopped by a sudden sound which startled him, which had a distinct tone of humanity in it, and did not spring from the fresh and free nature about. It was the sound of a sob. Dick stood still and looked about him, with recollections of his own childhood rising fresh into his mind, and a tender thought of finding some poor little tired wanderer under some tree, crying for weariness. But he could see nothing, and presently went on again, persuading himself that his ears must have deceived him. He went on, himself rousing intermittent echoes, for his step was sometimes inaudible on the mossy turf, and sometimes sent thrills of sound all through the wood, as his foot crashed on a fallen branch, or struck the pebbles aside in a little shower.

When he got to the linn he paused for some time on the edge of the river, struck by the beauty of the place; and only when he was passing on, perceived behind him, all at once, somebody sitting at the foot of one of the trees—a little figure muffled in a blue cloak, and leaning against the hole of one of the big beeches. Dick made an unconscious exclamation—“I beg your pardon!”—and went hastily on, half frightened lest he should have disturbed some one who had a better right to be there than he had. But this incident broke the spell of his wandering, and recalled him to the thought that he was far from Rosscraig, and that it would be safer to turn back as he had come, than to risk losing his way. Perhaps a little curiosity about the solitary figure under the tree had something to do with this prudent thought; but his curiosity was lessened by a second glance he had stolen through the trees, which showed him that it was a lady who sat there. Had it been a tramp-woman, Dick might have shown his sympathy; but upon a lady, even one in trouble, he could not intrude; and yet he could not help being interested. Could it be from her that the sob had come? and why should she be crying here, all alone, like an enchanted princess? He knew little about enchanted princesses, but he had a tender, heart, and the sob had troubled him. He went back again, passing slowly, trying to make out, without staring—which was not consistent with Dick’s idea of “manners”—who it was, and what she was doing under the shadow of the tree. The soft grass glade between these two giants of the wood was lighted up by a slant ray of the sun which slid all the way down the high bank on the other side of Esk, to pour that oblique line of glory under the great sweeping boughs over the greensward. She was seated out of the sunshine, but with her face turned towards the light, and it seemed to Dick that it was a face he had seen before. I do not think the fact that it was a young face, and a fair one, touched him so much as that it was very pale and mournful, justifying his idea that the sob must somehow have belonged to it. How he would have liked to linger, to ask what was the matter! He would have done so, had she not been a lady; but Dick knew his place. His surprise was great, however, when, as soon as his back was turned, he heard a stir, a sound of footsteps, a faint call, which seemed addressed to him. He turned round quickly. The girl, whoever she was, had risen from her seat. She had come out of the shade into the sunshine, and was standing between the trees, with the light upon her, catching a glittering edge of hair, and giving a hem of brightness to one side of her figure, and to the outlines of the blue cloak. “I beg your pardon; did you call me?” said Dick, shy but eager. Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she wanted help of one kind or another. Then the little woodland lady beckoned to him timidly. I think, if it had not been for the anxiety and longing that swelled her heart wellnigh to bursting, Violet would never have had the courage thus to appeal to a stranger in the wood.