Chapter XIV: The Boy’s Appeal

“Mother, now you must come to a decision. You cannot keep me longer in suspense. Mr. Bass writes to me that there is only one vacant place in the expedition, and that he cannot leave it longer unfilled up. It must be Yes or No.”

“I have said No, Eddy, a hundred times.”

“But without due consideration,” he cried eagerly. “Think mother! How often have you said that it was easier for every one when a fellow had a bent one way or another, when he knew what he wanted to be. I never did till now; one thing was the same to me as another; I was ready to do whatever you said, and then you regretted that I had no bent! But now that I have a wish, a strong desire, you deny me, you will not give me a plain answer. The responsibility will be on you,” cried Edward, with excitement, “if you baulk me. I feel I can do this, and I don’t know what else I can do, and I don’t care for anything else in life.”

He was hot and flushed with eagerness. She was pale, and her face drawn with anxiety and distress. The boy assailed with all the eagerness of his young strength and self-will, the mother, torn by conflicting emotions, resisted. All was unity in his mind, all contention and complication in hers. She would have done anything in the world to please him. She would have made any sacrifice to secure him his wish--except the sacrifice he demanded, the sacrifice of his own prospects, and comfort, and use in life. Even, feeling this deeply, and feeling that it was her duty to resist him, the effort of doing so wrung her heart.

“I know I have the responsibility,” she said gravely. “You are too young to judge for yourself, and if you were older you are excited, Eddy, and your mind is warped. I cannot consent to it. If I must speak decisively let me do it at once. I cannot give you up to this vagabondism, this mere wild course of adventure. All that man says is but words--fine words, brave words, but nothing, nothing more, Eddy. I know what I am speaking of. I cannot consent.”

“Then, mother--” he sprang up furiously to his feet, his whole aspect changed. He looked as if about to pour upon her some violent outburst of rage or reproach. Then he stopped suddenly. “If it is to be so,” he said with a sombre countenance, “if you refuse me this only thing I have ever cared for, then all is over with me. I don’t care what becomes of me. Do what you like, it doesn’t matter any more.”

“This is folly--it is madness, Edward!”

“You may call it what you please,” said the lad, with a sullen shrug of the shoulders. “One word or another, what does it matter? It is all one. Mamma, I know you mean well, you think it is for the best; but you have crushed all the life out of me, and I don’t care now what I do.”

“You will feel differently, Eddy, when you have considered--when you have thought of it more.”

“Considered! Thought! As if I had done anything else for weeks,” he said, with something like scorn; and there ensued a heavy pause, a pause which neither broke--until at last after awhile he rose dully, and went away, thrusting his hands down to the depths of his pockets. Poor Mrs. Tremenheere was left victorious, but miserable. She had broken her boy’s heart--for his good. She knew it was for his good, but still, as he said, she had crushed him, she who would rather have been crushed herself a hundred times. She had all the feebleness of a mother, though she thought herself a strong-minded woman; the moment she had refused him absolutely she began to think, would it have been possible to let him go? Perhaps--if he had been allowed to try it, to go a certain distance, to make the discovery for himself what it really was--_perhaps_ that might have cured him; whereas, now it would be his dream and ideal all his life. I can scarcely tell how she managed to live through the afternoon without conceding to Eddy’s downcast looks what her better judgment had refused to his entreaties, but she did hold out for the next day, and the next again. She saw him wandering about listlessly, not caring to go out, not caring for his cricket, not even waking up when the _Field_ came with all its news. When a boy like Edward Tremenheere can resist the _Field_, he must be bad indeed. Poor Eddy looked entirely broken down. He thrust his shoulders up to his ears and his hands down into his pockets. He left off whistling, he left off smiling, and if indeed his mother had broken his heart, as he said, he paid her back in her own coin, and broke hers. Never had there been a more melancholy house than the villa for these two days. At last Mrs. Tremenheere could bear it no longer.

“Edward,” she said, the third morning, throwing aside the diminutive, half consciously in the solemnity of the circumstances, “this is more than I can bear. You look as if you had lost all your friends, all you care for----”

“So I have,” he said sullenly; and then with a look that wrung her heart he added, “Have patience a little, mother. I have lost a great deal more than you think--the first thing I ever really cared for. I daresay I shall be better after a while, but I can’t look cheerful all at once. Leave me alone till I come to myself--if I ever do.”

“You break my heart,” she said, “Oh, Eddy, if I could give in to you I would--but how can I, feeling as I do? And you would be the first to blame me when you are older, and see things in their true light.”

“I shall never do that,” said Edward doggedly. “The true light is what I have been seeing so long. Now I have fallen back into no light at all, and that is what I must put up with for the rest of my life.”

Then there was another interval of gloom and silence--another day with still the same heavy languor upon him. Mrs. Tremenheere was altogether overwhelmed. In the afternoon she went up-stairs, and put on her bonnet, tying the strings resolutely before the glass, and looking almost fiercely at her own pale face.

“I am going to town,” she said, meeting Edward on her way to the door. “I cannot bear the responsibility you have thrown on me. I am going to consult your father. If he thinks anything can be done to satisfy you I will put aside my own feelings. I will not put myself in your way.”

A sudden light of joy flushed over Edward’s face.

“How good you are, mother, how good you are to me!” he cried; but then he paused and shook his head. There was not much faith to be put in his father. Still, a glimmering of hope sprang up in him the moment he found that the question was not entirely concluded. He walked to the railway station with her, his face already lightened, his head more erect, his shoulders in their usual place. He was more tender to her than ever he had been, compunctious, sorry for having troubled her, now that he saw a revival of possibility that he might yet have his own way.

It was a desperate resolution which Mrs. Tremenheere had taken; all her pride, both as wife and woman, would have to be sacrificed. She would be obliged as good as to confess, she who in her heart thought her experiment so much more successful than her husband’s, that she had failed, that the mother was not enough, that she required his aid to influence and guide her boy. Only a few weeks before her husband had rejected her proffered aid with scorn; and now she had to go humbly to seek his, to lay her problem before him. She walked to the little station with a sense of humiliation and downfall in her mind which her very anxiety could scarcely keep in balance. Never, after thus giving in, could she hold up her head as of old before either father or son. If she had done wrong she felt that she was punished. She could scarcely respond to Edward’s rising cheerfulness as she went along that dreary bit of way. What an end it was to all her pride, to all her theories! A train had just arrived from town as she approached the platform of the country station to wait for her train going up to town. The people streaming out kept her back till she began to fear she would be too late. Going on in advance, anxiously, leaving Edward behind her, she almost ran against a gentleman who was coming with equal haste and eagerness in the other direction, but whom in her pre-occupation she did not notice except to get out of his way. Then she stopped short suddenly, stopped by the cry he gave at seeing her--“Ada!” She raised her head quickly, thunderstruck. It was Mr. Tremenheere.

“You are coming to me?” he said, holding out his hand, and stranger still, drawing hers within his arm, and leading her with him as if they had been the most confidential of friends. His manner was anxious and excited. “You were coming to me, Ada. I can see it in your face.--She is here!”

“She?” said Mrs. Tremenheere, excited too. “I don’t understand you. Yes, I was coming to you, Charles.”

“God bless you, my dear!” he cried earnestly, “if she is safe with you all is well.”

“Of whom are you speaking?” she said. “There is nobody with me but Eddy;” then with a cry, “Vera! Something has happened to my child!”

Mr. Tremenheere was quite tremulous and shaken, his eyes bloodshot, his countenance haggard, like an old man.

“Hush!” he said, “don’t let us publish it to everybody. She is not here, then? God help us! I thought she must certainly have gone to you.”

She grasped his arm with both hands:

“Charles,” she said, “tell me what has happened? Tell me everything. It is right I should know.”

“Yes, yes! it is right you should know. I came to you at once; it was the first thought in my mind. We are both to blame, both to blame, if anything beyond remedy has happened to her. Ada, she went away two days ago, where we cannot tell. I have come down from Scotland, travelling all night in answer to that woman’s telegram. Then I came on to you. I thought, God help me! she was sure to be here; and when I saw you---- But pride must be at an end and everything else. I have failed with Vera. I have driven her to despair; and where are we to find her, and how?”

“I was coming to you with the same confession in my mouth,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with tears in her eyes. “I have failed as well. I was coming to ask your help.”

“Has he gone away, too?”

“No; but something else,” she said. “Oh! forgive me, Charles, that is not so urgent. Tell me about Vera, and we must plan what is best to be done without delay.”

She forgot Edward and everything else. She turned down a quiet byway, holding her husband’s arm, clinging to it. He told her his story, and she listened, their two heads close together, their minds in absolute union, in one interest, in one feeling. He told her how it had been found out that Fane had followed Vera to Worthing, and how it was proved at last that Mary, her maid, the daughter of her old nurse, was in Fane’s pay, and working for him with all her might. He confessed that Miss Campbell had been hard upon the girl, keeping her in a kind of imprisonment.

“Carrying out my orders,” said the penitent father, “to the letter, without thinking of the spirit; for, of course, that was never what I intended. What I intended was by means of society and occupation to wean her from any foolish fancy that might have crept into her mind; and, indeed, I did not even know that she cared for the young fellow. I only knew that he supposed himself to be fond of her.”

“She is such a child. It was not to be expected that you could think of any strong sentiment on her part,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, soothingly, “but tell me more--Was he with her? Was any one with her? and how, if she was so watched, did she get away?”

“She went away in the morning, before any one was up, by the early train to town. Mary was with her; no one else, so far as we can find out. It appears,” said Mr. Tremenheere, with a look of shame, “that Miss Campbell, hearing of some early walks she had taken, had threatened to take her into her own room henceforward, to sleep there.”

“Vera would not put up with that. You never knew how impetuous she was; but if Mary was with her, and Mary only---- Charles, had you reason to think badly of this Mr. Fane?”

“Badly? No,” he said, with some impatience. “No. He is a mere nobody, that is all. Younger brother of a commonplace squire in one of the Midland counties--_quite_ distantly related to Lord Fanebury, with next to nothing, and no prospects that I know of; a sort of half-artist, as has been the fashion lately with idle young men--a man who could give her nothing, neither money nor position, nor----”

“But that meant no harm--could not mean any harm? Oh! Charles, they are both so young! and if you say she was harshly treated, my poor darling! He had a good face----”

“Ada, you are always ridiculous,” he cried, giving her arm in sheer impatience a hasty pressure with his. “What has the goodness of his face to do with it? He was well-looking enough--the question is, What is to be done? How are we to find her? I have set a detective on his track, of course. Why do you cry out? Such things are done every day, and the world need not be any the wiser. But tell me, if you have any suggestion to make.”

“I am thinking,” she said. “But, in the first place you must come home and rest, and take some food; you are worn out. Eddy and I, who are fresh and untired, must work now.”

“Ah!” he said, drawing a long breath. “Yes, I am very tired; but I did not expect you would think of me when Vera was in danger.”

“Oh! hush! hush!” she said, “are we not all one family, though we have been fools and divided ourselves? We shall find Vera. She is a good child, though she is hasty and young. She will not do anything there is shame in. God bless her!” cried the mother, with tears in her eyes, “wherever she is! She may be foolish and unhappy, but she will not go wrong. Charles, come home and take some rest, or you will be ill. Leave it for the moment to Eddy and me.”

It would be useless to say what Mr. Tremenheere’s feelings were when he found himself in his wife’s house, which she called “home”--the villa he had heard so often spoken of, but had never seen. His anxiety and fatigue blunted the sharpness of his personal feelings. He took the food that was served to him without even feeling it strange that she should fill his glass with wine, and sit by him while he ate; and went to lie down after his long vigil while she went to London with Edward, now fully roused up, and for the moment delivered from all thought of Africa. Mr. Tremenheere was no longer a young man, and he was very tired; and somehow putting the whole troublesome business into other hands seemed to relieve him, and gave him a degree of immediate ease which a few hours ago would scarcely have seemed possible. No doubt her mother would find her. A woman would know what another woman was likely to do in such an emergency; and she was fresh, as she said, and untired, whereas his head was aching with weariness. He had not slept for two nights, and scarcely had taken any food. After his wife and his son had left him, he wandered over the house in a curious languor of fatigue which blunted even his anxieties. The pretty house, all still and vacant, the broad rich landscape beneath, the sunny air and warmth and sweetness worked upon him like a spell. How strange it was that he should be here reposing himself, putting his burden upon other shoulders! Yes, “we are all one family, though we have been fools and divided ourselves.” How true that was! Mr. Tremenheere thought he had said it himself, and in the strength of that virtuous and reasonable sentiment went and lay down and slept. This new comer, who went to bed in broad daylight, and who was thus left alone in possession of the house, was a great wonder and excitement to the servants at the villa. He was “Missis’s husband,” but he was not “Master.” “Something was up,” everybody felt, from Jane, who was Mrs. Tremenheere’s feminine butler, to Sam, the boy in the garden. Had he come and taken possession, and ousted her altogether? The popular mind has great ideas as to what a husband can do. They thought Mrs. Tremenheere’s independence must have come to an end, and that the stranger had turned her out.