CHAPTER XXIV.
I sat long, till the fire in the grate burnt low and the chill of the winter night drove me shivering to my bed, revolving this conversation in my mind. If it could be proved that Mademoiselle Fédore was in league with the Italian, still more, if it could be proved she and he were married, Hartover could be permanently set free from her intrigues and her influence. I did not want to be vindictive; but with every fibre of my being I wanted to free the boy. For, as I realised in those lonely midnight hours, while the wind rumbled in the chimneys and roared through the bare branches of the elms in the Fellows’ Garden just without, the boy’s redemption, the boy’s growth into the fine and splendid character he might be, could be—as I believed—even yet, was dearer to me than any advantage of my own.
Had I not promised, moreover, to stand by him and help him to the end? Could I then, in honour, sit with folded hands, when the chance, however remote, of helping him presented itself? I had always feared Mademoiselle Fédore had not relinquished her designs on the boy, but merely bided her time. For a while my presence frustrated those designs; as, in even greater degree, did his passion for Nellie Braithwaite. But marriage with Nellie forbidden, and he surrounded, as he must be, by the flatteries lavished on, and snares set for, a rich and popular young nobleman in London, was it not too probable that in hours of idleness or reaction from dissipation she might gain an ascendency over him once more? Not only self-interest was involved. He being what he was, might she not only too easily fall genuinely in love with him? I would give her the benefit of the doubt, anyhow. Upon the exact nature of that love, whether of the higher, or the baser and animal sort, I did not choose to dwell. The difference in age, too, struck me now—more versed as I had grown in the ways of the world and of human nature—as no bar to inclination on his part. She was a clever woman and a beautiful one, of a voluptuous though somewhat hard type—to the Empress Theodora I had often compared her in my own mind. Further, as Warcop said to me long ago, did not ‘the she-kite know her business?’—Alas! and for certain, only too well!
So sitting there, through the lonely hours, the idea grew on me that the boy was actually in very grave peril; and that—neglect and silence notwithstanding—in his innermost heart he clung to me, and to the lessons of duty and noble living which I had taught him, still. This idea might, as I told myself, be a mere refinement of personal vanity and egoism. Yet I could not put it aside. If he called, even unconsciously, and I failed to answer, a sin of omission and a heavy one would assuredly lie at my door.
Finally I decided to seek counsel of my kind old friend the Master. The opportunity of doing so presented itself next day. For the Master had bidden me to a dinner party at the Lodge, given in honour of his widowed sister and her daughters, who were staying with him. This flutter of petticoats in our bachelor, not to say monastic, atmosphere produced in some quarters, I had reason to fancy, a corresponding flutter of hearts. Ladies were conspicuous by their absence in the Cambridge of those days, save during the festivities of the May term; and I own to a certain feeling of mild elation as I found myself seated beside Miss Alice Dynevor, the elder of the two young ladies, at the Master’s hospitable board.
I cannot assert that she appeared to be remarkable either for good looks or cleverness; but she was fresh and young—about twenty, I judged her—modest in manner, and evidently desirous to please; full of innocent questions concerning Cambridge and Cambridge ways, concerning our famous buildings, their names and histories, which I found it pleasant enough to answer. In the drawing-room, when we rejoined the ladies after dinner, she went to the piano, at her uncle’s request, and sang some Scotch songs and some sentimental ballads then much in vogue, with no great art, I admit, but with pleasing simplicity and a tuneful voice.
The evening left me under impressions at once agreeable and not a little sad. For, from the time I returned to Cambridge, I had hardly spoken to a woman. Doing so now, memories of Mere Ban and of Nellie crowded upon me thick and fast; and, throwing me back into that fantastic inner life of unsatisfied and consuming love, threw me also into a necessity for renewed self-abnegation and self-torment. At all costs I must find means to set the dear boy free of Fédore’s influence—set him free—and for what?
I stayed after the other guests had left and asked for a little private talk with the Master; recounted the substance of my conversation with Halidane last night, and stated my own convictions and the ground of them. He had heard of Marsigli’s disappearance, but had not mentioned it to me simply because he supposed I had seen it in the newspapers. I was much vexed at the strange oversight. Had I but learned it at the time, how much might have been saved! How much truly—more a thousand times than I then imagined.—Yet how know I that? No—I will believe all the events of our lives are well ordered, so long as they do not arise from our wilful ill-doings; and will never regret, as the result of blind chance, that which is in truth the education given each one of us, for our soul’s good, by an all-merciful and all-wise Father in Heaven.