Chapter LII: Laura's Doubts

Philip could not sleep, so great was his agitation. This conversation, the first Martin had ever held with anyone, filled him with consternation, almost to dismay. He had spoken to Dorothy of his delight over Martin's awakening soul, the soul of a child expanding under her influence, and a lovely expression of gladness had lit up the girl's face. But it had been a man's soul that was developing, not a child's. They had none of them thought of that. Martin was a man whose natural affections, so long thwarted and disappointed, were ready to flow swiftly into the first open channel. But to love Dorothy! If it had not been for his lifelong love for Phyllis, Philip would have loved Dorothy himself. How sweet and simple she was! how true! There was a fresh and innocent, almost a rustic charm about her which contrasted strongly with Phyllis's cultivated attractiveness. Philip, in his heart-sickness at Phyllis's worldliness, was open-eyed to Dorothy's unconscious disregard to custom and fashion. She valued the world as his mother valued it. With this thought there flashed across his mind an idea that brought terror with it. So unconventional was Dorothy that outward culture would not have as much value in her sight as it had in his own. Moreover, there was a passion in her, as in his mother, for self-sacrifice, an absolute, unappeasable hunger to be of service to her fellow-creatures. Was it quite impossible that after a while Dorothy might not become Martin's wife? He vehemently assured himself that it was impossible; but the question tormented him. It was already a marvelous change that had been wrought on Martin. Yet he felt an unutterable horror at the thought, and for the first time a bitter repugnance arose in his heart against his unhappy elder brother. He might take the estate, that birthright, which had appeared to be his own through all these years. But he must not think of Dorothy. What could this repugnance mean? If he had not loved Phyllis so ardently and constantly, he would have said he was in love with Dorothy himself. But it was only a few months since all Apley, Dorothy also, were witnesses of his rejected love and bitter disappointment. Only a few months? They seemed like years! He had been deceived in Phyllis, of course; the Phyllis whom he loved was chiefly a creature of his imagination; there had never been such a being. Dorothy was nearer his ideal than Phyllis had ever been, but he could not tell her so when she knew how passionate had been his mistaken love for Phyllis.

Early in the morning he sought a private interview with his mother, letting Dorothy go off on to the moors alone with Martin. Margaret and he watched them walking side by side, Martin's bowed-down head turned attentively toward her.

"It is a wonderful change," remarked Margaret; "we have not wasted these last four months, have we, Philip?"

"Mother," he said abruptly, "suppose Martin has fallen in love with Dorothy!"

Margaret's eyes met his own for a moment, and then followed the receding figures till they were nearly lost to sight. The short silence seemed intolerable to him.

"Poor fellow!" she said in a tone of exquisite pity, "that might be, and it would be another misfortune for him. I believe his nature is a fine one, full of possibilities of nobleness. But he has had no chance hitherto; and if this is true his last hope is gone."

"Dorothy could not marry him!" exclaimed Philip.

"She would not marry him," said Margaret sadly; "if she would she could indeed do more for him than any other human being can. If he loves her that will partly account for his rapid development. There is no educator like love."

"But, mother," he cried, "Martin can never be anything but an ignorant, superstitious peasant. There can be no real culture for him. He can never be a gentleman. He will not be as well educated as our lodge keeper."

"I suppose he will always be ignorant of what we call knowledge," she answered, "but he need not remain superstitious. The light of God can shine into his heart as fully as into ours. He begins to realize that we love him; and what is our love but single drops from the unfathomable ocean of God's love? As soon as he knows that God loves him, he will be wiser than the wisest man of the world."

"Then you would not oppose Dorothy marrying him?" he asked indignantly.

"Not if she would do it," she replied. "I would heap upon Martin the best and worthiest of all the blessings of this life, if that would atone for the loss of all his childhood and youth. Think of it, my Philip. While you occupied his place, he was enduring the want of all things. We cannot do too much, or give up too much, for him. But no thought of loving him in that way is in Dorothy's mind."

"Thank God!" he said fervently.

Margaret smiled, and held out her hand to him fondly. A moment ago the thought had flashed through his brain that his mother was too high-minded and too visionary for this life. But the clear, steadfast light in her eyes, and the smile playing about her lips, were not those of a person rapt away from all earthly interests.

"No, Philip," she said, "Dorothy looks upon Martin simply as a brother, one whose sad lot she can brighten. I cannot wish it otherwise, though I am grieved for him. Tell me all you think about it."

He repeated almost verbally the conversation he had held with Martin the night before; and Margaret listened with a troubled face.

"Dorothy ought not to stay here," he said.

"It is a pity," she answered, sighing, "for it increases our difficulties a hundredfold. I was hoping the time would come when we could take Martin to London, and introduce him there to such of your father's old friends who ought to know him, and who could understand the whole story. But it will not do for Dorothy to stay here much longer; and Martin would not improve alone with me, if I could stay, as he does with her. O Philip! I could almost wish, for your father's sake, that she could care for Martin."

"Impossible!" he ejaculated.

"Yes, you wise, blind boy," she replied, "it is impossible. If Martin could be trained into a perfect gentleman, it would still be impossible."

"Mother!" he exclaimed, the color mounting to his forehead as he turned away from her smiling eyes, "it is so short a time since Phyllis jilted me."

"If I am not mistaken," said Margaret, "Dorothy loved you before that."

"Loved me!" he repeated, "why! I was nothing to her. I had no eyes for her before you came to Venice; I saw no one but Phyllis. I could never presume to tell her I loved her, when she knows how infatuated I was with Phyllis."

"I judge only by appearances," said his mother, "but your father thinks as I do; and nothing could please your father more. She is already as dear to him as his own child. He has suffered more than words can tell, and greatly on your account, but he will feel that you have not lost all if you win Dorothy as your wife. I think the estate well lost if it saved you from an unhappy marriage."

"Oh, mother," he cried, "what a fool I was!"

"To be sure," she said smiling.

"But now I could see Phyllis again to-morrow," he went on, "and not feel grieved. Let us go back to Apley; at least you and Dorothy. You left home on my account; but it is too far away here. It would be better for my father to have you at home again, or in London. Come home again, mother."

"Poor Martin!" she said, with a troubled face.

But as she thought over what Philip had told her, Margaret felt that it was time to separate Martin from Dorothy. She took Rachel Goldsmith into her confidence, and she agreed with her. It seemed a preposterous thing to Rachel that Martin should deprive Philip of his birthright, and that so much importance should be attached to his education at so late a period of his life.

"The best thing for him," she said, "would be to set him up in a little farm, and give him cows and sheep and pigs to tend; he'd be ten times happier than here. There's no common sense in the laws, if they say our Sophy's son is to take the place of your son, my lady; and to his own misery too. I'd say nothing if anybody was the better for it. But it is just the ruin of my brother Andrew. And to think of him falling in love with Miss Dorothy! when the scullery maid would think twice before she married him!"

"Poor fellow!" sighed Margaret. "Poor fellow!" she said many times to herself during the next few days, as preparations were made for their departure. Dorothy also was full of pity for him, and devoted every hour of the day to him. She visited with him all their favorite haunts, which were growing to her more beautiful with the touch of spring upon them, though to him the vanishing of winter brought regret. She read to him once more the "Fioretti di San Francisco," and heard him read over and over again the first few chapters, which he had mastered under her tuition, or perhaps learned by heart merely. But Dorothy, though grieved and troubled for him, was glad to go south. Her spirits rose high at the thought of how short a distance would separate her from Philip, and the still more pleasant thought that he was willing to make Apley his home again, shrinking no more from the sight of Phyllis. It was with a light heart, saddened for a few minutes only by Martin's face of moody melancholy, that she quitted Brackenburn.

The old house fell back into its former dreary stillness. Andrew and Mary Goldsmith returned to take charge of it; and the tutor resumed his routine duties of educating and civilizing Martin. But Martin was duller and less apt than before. Dorothy had left with him her "Fioretti," telling him to ask his tutor to read to him, and to let him learn out of it. But the book was too precious to him; alone he spelt through the chapters she had taught him, but he would let no one else touch it. If he must learn to read it should be in English, out of his dog's-eared primer. But he could learn no more.

There was again nothing to do during the long days which the advancing spring brought. When the east winds blew bitterly over the moor he lay silent and still in the warmth of the fire; when the air was heated by the rays of the sun, which was mounting every day higher into the heavens, he basked, silent and still, in its warmth. Andrew again attached himself as the constant companion of Sophy's son, though between them must ever stand the barrier of different tongues--a barrier which neither of them could cross. There were a hundred things Andrew wanted to say to him, especially to warn him against cutting off the entail, when he was dead, but it could not be done. The two were seldom apart, though they could exchange no thoughts. The persistent, dogged affection of this old man, his grandfather, won its way some what into Martin's heart. He grew accustomed to his presence, and missed him if he was absent.

The one person who rejoiced most in Margaret's return to Apley was Sidney. She had been more separated from him these last few months than she had ever been since he first knew her. It struck Margaret that his burden pressed more heavily upon him than it did at first. The parliamentary session had been running its course, and he, who was an ardent politician, stood outside the arena. Many of his former colleagues, possessing only a partial knowledge of the events of the last years, treated him with thinly disguised contempt or studied neglect. Even in Apley and its neighborhood the faces of old friends were estranged, and their manner chilling. He was no longer the public favorite.

Sidney felt this change bitterly and profoundly. It had always been his aim to surround himself with kindly and smiling faces, which should meet his eye wherever he looked, even to the farthest circle of his sphere. His servants and dependents almost idolized him, and he had succeeded in gaining popularity among his equals. Now all faces seemed changed and critical. Even God's face was turned away from him. He was walking in heaviness and darkness of soul, such as he had not known before his sin had found him out, and while his conscience was satisfied with mechanical and superficial religion. His path was strait where it had once been broad and pleasant. Still, deeper down than this surface conscience of his, and this heaviness of soul, in his inmost spirit, touched by no other spirit than God's, there was a stirring of life and love such as he had never known before, which no words can shadow forth, and no mind save that which feels it can conceive.

It was a necessary consequence of this intrinsic change that he and Margaret should draw nearer to one another. He understood now what had been mysterious and incomprehensible in her. There was in a degree the same sense of closer union and mutual comprehension between him and the rector. While other faces were turned away, these two shone upon him with a diviner light of love and friendship. But there was no one else. Even Dorothy, with all her sweetness, was judging him, balancing the scales of justice with the severe evenhandedness of youth with a bandage over its eyes. Philip had passed beyond him, and stood higher than he in his youthful probity and honor. They were right; he had been guilty of a great wrong.

Always gnawing at his heart was the remorseful recollection of his eldest son, whom he could not love, but for whom he felt an unutterable pity. A living witness against his selfishness and hypocrisy! The thought of him, haunting him at all times, was charged with misery. It was becoming morbid with him, when Margaret, not too soon, came back to Apley, and was once more his daily companion.

Margaret and Laura met on apparently the old terms. Margaret was very anxious that there should be no break in the intimacy between Sidney and the rector. Partly on this account, and partly from the patience and pity she had learned for the follies of others, she made no difference toward Laura. But Dorothy, again with the severity of youth, could not tolerate the presence of Phyllis's mother. Phyllis herself was away; but when Laura came up to the Hall, Dorothy found some pretext to be absent, or, if that was impossible, sat by in unbroken silence. Not one of Laura's blandishments could induce her to go to the Rectory. Dick's chances were gone, if he ever had any.

"I see plainly enough what Sidney and Margaret are about," Laura said to her husband. "Now Philip has lost the inheritance, and is a poor match, they are going to bring about a marriage between him and Dorothy Churchill. They are shrewd enough for that, with all their unworldliness."

"Philip and Dorothy!" he repeated thoughtfully; "that seems to me an excellent marriage, now that my poor little Phyllis has found out she never loved Philip. I should have rejoiced in giving Phyllis to him; but doubtless Dorothy is still better suited. And Sidney wished it before he knew of Phyllis's engagement to Philip."

"But I was hoping Dick would have a chance with Dorothy," she said.

"Dick? Oh, no!" he answered. "It would grieve me to the heart if any of my sons became fortune hunters. Dorothy is too rich for any of them. Let them marry girls in their own station, and live honest, industrious lives. I am glad Dick never thought of such a thing."

"But Philip is in the same position now; it is just as much fortune-hunting for him to seek Dorothy."

"Nothing of the kind," he said with the sudden sharpness of a dreamy, mild-tempered man. "Do you suppose Sidney has nothing but those estates bought by Sir John Martin, our uncle? He has had that magnificent business for over five-and-twenty years. All that he has made for himself will go to Philip."

"Why does Philip become a medical student, then?" she asked snappishly.

"Because the lad does not care to be doing nothing," he replied, "and Margaret does not like him to engage in commerce. She says she does not want him to have nothing to do save merely amassing money. Of course, he would have been a country gentleman, practically a landlord, looking after his father's interests and the welfare of his future tenants. He would have become a magistrate, and he was admirably fitted for filling many useful posts as a country gentleman. Now this prospect has come to an end he chooses to study surgery instead of going into business; a good choice, I think. But he will be a rich man, rich enough to marry a greater heiress than Dorothy, without incurring the reproach of fortune hunting. Sidney must be little short of being a millionaire."

Could this be true? thought Laura with a sinking heart. George might easily be mistaken, but then again it was quite probable that Sidney had made a large fortune by trade. Enormous fortunes were made in the city, and Sidney was always spoken of as a very successful man. Suppose he should be a millionaire! There was not the shadow of a doubt which of his sons his money would go to. Hugh was well provided for, and Martin would not get a shilling, more than was entailed upon him. Philip as a millionaire would be a better match than even an English landlord with a Yorkshire estate, worth only £10,000 a year. She wished she had been less hasty in breaking off Phyllis's engagement. It was that folly of Philip becoming a medical student which had led her astray. But then, would Philip be a millionaire?