Pisistratus.—Affection! There is a nature capable of strong affection at the core of this wild heart! He could love his mother; tears gush to his eyes at her name—he would have starved rather than part with the memorial of that love. It was his belief in his father's indifference or dislike that hardened and embruted him—it is only when he hears how that father loved him, that I now melt his pride and curb his passions. You have affection to deal with!—do you despair now?
My father turned on me those eyes so inexpressibly benign and mild, and replied softly, "No!"
We reached the house; and my father said, as we knocked at the door, "If he is at home, leave me. This is a hard study to which you have set me; I must work at it alone." Vivian was at home, and the door closed on his visitor. My father stayed some hours.
On returning home, to my great surprise I found Trevanion with my uncle. He had found us out—no easy matter, I should think. But a good impulse in Trevanion was not of that feeble kind which turns home at the sight of a difficulty. He had come to London on purpose to see and to thank us.
I did not think there had been so much of delicacy—of what I may call the "beauty of kindness"—in a man whom incessant business had rendered ordinarily blunt and abrupt. I hardly recognised the impatient Trevanion in the soothing, tender, subtle respect that rather implied than spoke gratitude, and sought to insinuate what he owed to the unhappy father, without touching on his wrongs from the son. But of this kindness—which showed how Trevanion's high nature of gentleman raised him aloof from that coarseness of thought which those absorbed wholly in practical affairs often contract—of this kindness, so noble and so touching, Roland seemed scarcely aware. He sat by the embers of the neglected fire, his hands grasping the arms of his elbow-chair, his head drooping on his bosom; and only by a deep hectic flush on his dark cheek could you have seen that he distinguished between an ordinary visitor and the man whose child he had helped to save. This minister of state—this high member of the elect, at whose gift are places, peerages, gold sticks, and ribbons—has nothing at his command for the bruised spirit of the half-pay soldier. Before that poverty, that grief, and that pride, the King's Counsellor was powerless. Only when Trevanion rose to depart, something like a sense of the soothing intention which the visit implied seemed to rouse the repose of the old man, and to break the ice at its surface; for he followed Trevanion to the door, took both his hands, pressed them, then turned away, and resumed his seat. Trevanion beckoned to me, and I followed him down stairs, and into a little parlour which was unoccupied.
After some remarks upon Roland, full of deep and considerate feeling, and one quick, hurried reference to the son—to the effect that his guilty attempt would never be known by the world—Trevanion then addressed himself to me with a warmth and urgency that took me by surprise. "After what has passed," he exclaimed, "I cannot suffer you to leave England thus. Let me not feel with you, as with your uncle, that there is nothing by which I can repay—no, I will not so put it. Stay and serve your country at home: it is my prayer—it is Ellinor's. Out of all at my disposal, it will go hard but what I shall find something to suit you." And then, hurrying on, Trevanion spoke flatteringly of my pretensions, in right of birth and capabilities, to honourable employment, and placed before me a picture of public life—its prizes and distinctions—which, for the moment at least, made my heart beat loud and my breath come quick. But still, even then, I felt (was it an unreasonable pride?) that there was something that jarred, something that humbled, in the thought of holding all my fortunes as a dependency on the father of the woman I loved, but might not aspire to;—something even of personal degradation in the mere feeling that I was thus to be repaid for a service, and recompensed for a loss. But these were not reasons I could advance; and, indeed, so for the time did Trevanion's generosity and eloquence overpower me, that I could only falter out my thanks, and my promise that I would consider and let him know.
With that promise he was forced to content himself; he told me to direct to him at his favourite country-seat, whither he was going that day, and so left me. I looked round the humble parlour of the mean lodging-house, and Trevanion's words came again before me like a flash of golden light. I stole into the open air, and wandered through the crowded streets, agitated and disturbed.
CHAPTER XCIII.
Several days elapsed—and of each day my father spent a considerable part at Vivian's lodgings. But he maintained a reserve as to his success, begged me not to question him, and to refrain also for the present from visiting my cousin. My uncle guessed or knew his brother's mission; for I observed that, whenever Austin went noiseless away, his eye brightened, and the colour rose in a hectic flush to his cheek. At last my father came to me one morning, his carpet-bag in his hand, and said, "I am going away for a week or two. Keep Roland company till I return."
"Going with him?"