“But do you know, Hawthorne,” continued Ormiston, taking my arm with something like his old manner, and no longer showing any anxiety to cut short our interview, “I am afraid this is not the worst of it. There is a report in the city this morning, I was told, that Mr Russell’s character is implicated by some rather unbusinesslike transactions. I believe you are a friend of poor Russell’s, and for that reason I mention it to you in confidence. He may not be aware of it; but the rumour is, that his father dare not show himself again here: that he has left England I know to be a fact.”
“And his daughter?—Miss Russell?” I asked involuntarily—“his children, I mean—where are they?”
I thought Ormiston’s colour heightened; but he was not a man to show much visible emotion. “Charles Russell and his sister are still in London,” he replied; “I have just seen them. They know their father has left for the Continent; I hope they do not know all the reasons. I am very sincerely sorry for young Russell; it will be a heavy blow to him, and I fear he will find his circumstances bitterly changed. Of course he will have to leave Oxford.”
“I suppose so,” said I; “no one can feel more for him than I do. It was well, perhaps, that this did not happen in term time.”
“It has spared him some mortification, certainly. You will see him, perhaps, before you leave town; he will take it kind. And if you have any influence with him—(he will be inclined to listen just now to you, perhaps, more than to me; being more of his own age, he will give you credit for entering into his feelings)—do try and dissuade him from forming any wild schemes, to which he seems rather inclined. He has some kind friends, no doubt; and remember, if there is anything in which I can be of use to him, he shall have my aid even to the half of my kingdom—that is, my tutorship.”
And with a smile and tone which seemed a mixture of jest and earnest, Mr Ormiston wished me good-morning. He was to leave for Oxford that night.
Of Russell’s address in town I was up to this moment ignorant, but resolved to find it out, and see him before my return to the University. The next morning, however, a note arrived from him, containing a simple request that I would call. I found him at the place from which he wrote—one of those dull quiet streets that lead out of the Strand—in very humble lodgings; his father’s private establishment having been given up, it appeared, immediately. The moment we met, I saw at once, as I expected, that the blow which to Ormiston had naturally seemed so terrible a one—no less than the loss, to a young man, of the wealth, rank, and prospects in life to which he had been taught to look forward—had been, in fact, to Russell a merciful relief. The failure of that long-celebrated and trusted house, which was causing in the public mind, according to the papers, so much “consternation” and “excitement,” was to him a consummation long foreseen, and scarcely dreaded. It was only the shadow of wealth and happiness which he had lost now; its substance had vanished long since. And the conscious hollowness and hypocrisy, as he called it, of his late position, had been a far more bitter trial to a mind like his, than any which could result from its exposure. He was one to hail with joy any change which brought him back to truth and reality, no matter how rude and sudden the revulsion.