"But, possibly, it might avail me were I to further them," said the nephew, very softly.
"It might," said Sir Michael; "the broad lands of Randolph Abbey could, with little loss, furnish a handsome compensation to the person who should assist me in placing therein, the heirs I desire to choose."
Gabriel's reply was merely a significant look of acquiescence, and the old man, bestowing on him a smile of approbation such as he had never before vouchsafed him, went away well pleased. He was firmly convinced that he had enlisted in support of the plan that was already a favorite one with him, the individual amongst all his heirs who he was the most positively resolved should never inherit the Abbey, both because he rather disliked him personally, and because he could not forgive him his mother's low birth. Could he have seen the sneer with which Gabriel looked after him, he would have been somewhat unpleasantly enlightened as to the real value of the ally he had obtained.
VI. THE DEAD FATHER IS MADE THE PERSECUTOR OF THE LIVING SON.
Very strange was the contrast between the splendid drawing-room, blazing with light and heat, where the Randolph family were assembled, and the small room in the other wing of the house which was occupied by Hubert Lyle. It contained barely the furniture necessary for his use, and this was by his own desire, for it was already sufficiently bitter to him to eat the bread dealt out so grudgingly, and at least he would not be beholden to his stepfather for more than the actual necessaries of existence.
Sorely against his proud mother's wish, he had chosen for his sitting-room one of the very meanest and poorest in the house, with a single window, low and narrow, which looked out on a deserted part of the grounds. Hubert liked it all the better for this, as there was no flower-garden or green-house near to bring the head-gardener, with his trim, mathematical mind, amongst the wild beauties of nature. The grass was left in this part to come up against the very wall of the house, and the ivy and honeysuckle which grew round the window were allowed to penetrate almost into the room. Fortunately, the noble trees which filled the park stood somewhat apart in this place, and their arching branches formed at this moment a sort of framework to the most glorious picture that ever is given to mortal eyes to look upon—the lucid sky of night, filled as it were to overflowing with radiant worlds, each hanging in its own atmosphere of glory.
It was no wonder that Hubert turned from the low, dark room, so dimly lit with its single candle, to look upon this the bright landscape of the skies. Within, the scene was certainly uninviting. The heavy deal table, the scanty supply of chairs, the plain writing-desk, evidently many years in use, were the only objects on which the eye could rest, excepting a few books and a small piano, the gift of Aletheia, with which, greatly to his astonishment, she had presented him one day—for she was as completely a stranger to him as she was to all the rest of the family, and had always avoided intercourse with him as much as she did with every one else. This thoughtful act of kindness on her part, however, produced no increased acquaintance between them, as she shrank from hearing his expressions of gratitude on that occasion, and, indeed, they seldom met. Aletheia was never in Lady Randolph's rooms, where alone Hubert was to be met, excepting at rare intervals, when Sir Michael was absent.
Hubert sat now at the window; he had laid down his heavy head upon the wooden ledge, and his hands fell listlessly on his knee. He seemed full of anxious thoughts, and sighed very deeply more than once. From time to time, apparently with a violent effort, he looked up and gazed fixedly on the tranquil stars, seeming to drink in their pure glory, as though he sought to steep his soul in this light of higher spheres; but ever a sort of trembling passed over his frame, and he would sink down again oppressed and weary. This was most unlike Hubert Lyle's usual condition. He was a man of the most ardent and sensitive feelings; but, at the same, possessed of that moral strength and truthfulness of soul which can only belong to a great character—by this last expression, we mean that he was what few are in this world, neither a deceiver nor deceived. He did not deceive himself in any case, nor would he allow life to deceive him; he saw things as they really were, and he permitted not the bright coloring of hope or imagination to deck them with false apparel; he did not live as most men do, figuring to himself that he was as it were the centre of the universe, and that all around him thought of him and felt for him as he did for himself. He weighed himself in the balance not of his own self-love, but of other men's judgment, and rated himself accordingly. Thus, in the earlier days of his maturity, he constrained his spirit to rise up and look his position in the face. And truly it was one which might have appalled a less feeling heart than his.
His outward circumstances were as bitter as could well be to a high-minded man. He was a dependent on the grudging charity of one who abhorred him; and though he would right thankfully have gone out from these inhospitable doors, even to starve, in preference, yet was he bound to endure existence within them, by a promise which his mother had extorted from him as a condition of their marriage, that he never would leave Randolph Abbey without her consent. This marriage he knew was to save her from a blighting penury which was killing her; and, moreover, she concealed from him that cruel hatred of Sir Michael, which was the only heritage his dead father left him, and, thinking no evil, he had given them the promise which bound him as with an iron chain to abide under the roof of his unprovoked enemy. But heavier even than unjust hatred was the weight upon soul and body of his own deformity; for if the first shut up one human heart from him, and turned its power of affection to gall for his sake, the other cast him out for ever from the love of all human kind. He knew that his unsightly frame could call forth no other feeling from them but a cold, most often a contemptuous pity.
And yet, when he looked out into the world—the dark, tumultuous, agonizing world—that very sea of human hearts, all beating up upon the stony shores of a life, against which they are for ever broken and shattered, he saw passing through the midst of it all a soft, pure light, shedding warmth and brightness even on the dreariest scenes, and causing men to forget all pain, and privation, and misery—a light to which the saddest eyes turned with a joyous greeting, and on which the gaze of the dying lingered mournfully, till the coffin-lid for ever shut it out from their fond longing. And he knew that this one blessed thing, which could overcome the strong, fierce evils of life, like the maid in the pride of her purity, before whom the lion would turn and flee, was called Human Love in the doting hearts of men—Human Love—the one sole, unfailing joy of our merely mortal existence. And was it for him? Should he ever have any share in it? Was its sweetness ever to be for his hungry and thirsty heart? Never! The seal was set upon him in his repulsive appearance, that he was to be an outcast from his fellow-men; his deformity was as a burden bound upon his back, with which he was driven out into the wilderness, there to abide in utter solitude of soul. The promise of life was abortive for him ere yet he had begun it.