Chapter LIII: Andrew's Hope

A few weeks after Margaret and Dorothy left Brackenburn, a telegram reached Sidney in town from Martin's tutor: "Martin lost since dawn yesterday; searching moors."

The sense of loneliness and separation became intolerable to Martin after Dorothy was gone. The homesickness, if it could be called so in one who had never had a home, made him uncontrollably restless. There was not in all this vast expanse of moorland an object that could distract his brooding memory, and in the old house, with its now empty rooms, there was no one who could speak in his own language except the tutor, a kindly man enough, but with no special interest in his uncouth charge. Martin had borne his exile as long as he could. Now he would make his way down to London where Dorothy and Philip lived. His father also was there, and that beautiful, gracious signora, who called herself his mother, and who always looked at him with wonderful kindness in her eyes. When he saw them he would make them understand that he could not live in England any longer, and they would let him go back to Ampezzo, and buy him a farm there among the old familiar faces. No one would ill treat him any more when they saw how rich he was.

He set off in the clear gray of the dawn, just as the twitter of the birds began in every tree and hedgerow, and the silver drops of dew hung upon every leaf. It was barely a year since he had been taken from his mountain home, and his life of misery and oppression there; but to him it was as long as centuries. He recollected well enough what he had suffered; still he felt vaguely that, though his sufferings were different, they were not less in this strange country. He was like a blind man whose sight is partially restored, and behold! everything is dim, and monstrous, and full of terror; he dare not move lest he should come in contact with these menacing forms. All the new world to which Martin had been brought was out of keeping with him. He had no place in it. If he could only live like the farmers in the Ampezzo Valley, a hardy, sturdy, stalwart life, where his sinewy, clumsy limbs would be of service to him, there would be a chance of his being happy.

These impressions, like all others, were vague, but not on that account less powerful. He could not shape them into language, but he fancied if he could see Philip or Dorothy he could make them understand. But they were gone, these only beloved ones, and he did not know when he should see them again. He must follow them, or he would die. His wanderings took a southerly direction. It was natural to him to avoid passing through the streets of any town, and when he came near to one he turned aside and took a roundabout road. There was no hardship to him in sleeping out of doors at this time of the year, and he felt no inconvenience from the fact that he could not maintain a decent appearance. In the villages he passed through, buying food with the few shillings he possessed, he was taken for a foreign tramp, and well watched. The children sometimes hooted at him, but that was nothing; it was almost welcome, and he paid no attention to it beyond a flickering smile.

Meanwhile, in all the local papers, and very quickly in the London papers also, there appeared sensational paragraphs describing the disappearance of and search made for the son and heir of Sidney Martin. The whole story, with the old scandal, came to the front again. In the course of a few days the fugitive was found, and brought back to Brackenburn, whither his father and brother had hurried upon receiving the news. It was in vain to reproach him. He was a man, with a man's right to freedom, and not even his father was justified in keeping him under restraint as if he was a madman. A man who suffered from no sense of hardship when he was living out of doors, with little food besides wild berries and field vegetables, might spend the greater part of his time in these fitful wanderings, relapsing more and more into his original barbarism.

"Your mother and Dorothy cannot live here altogether to be his keeper," said Sidney to Philip, "yet it is evident his grandfather has no control over him. What more can we do?"

"You have done all you could, father," answered Philip, "and now I say, let him go back to Cortina, if he is so bent upon it; and we should not lose sight of him. It would be nothing to buy him a farm there."

"Impossible!" said Sidney. "If he returns a rich man, some woman there will marry him, and his son will be no more fit to be an English gentleman than he is. If we could make him understand about the entail I could pay him to cut it off; but he could never know what it meant. No; he must not go back to Cortina."

"Let us take him down to Apley," suggested Philip.

"Would he be better off there?" asked his father. "He finds life here too civilized with all the moors to roam over. How would he feel where every acre of land is enclosed, and no trespassing allowed, and where life is so much more cramped by custom and conventionality? Do you think he could bear it? I say nothing about your mother and Dorothy, whose lives must be upset and spoiled by his presence; but would he be happier?"

"Look at him," said Philip, "how he is listening and watching us, as if he would tear the words out of our mouths. Martin," he added in Italian, "we are talking about you."

"Yes, yes!" he answered eagerly.

"What are we to do with you?" asked Philip.

"Send me back to Cortina," he replied.

"But we want you to live here," continued Philip; "we wish you to marry some good English girl, and bring up your sons to be like Hugh and me. This house and these lands will belong to your eldest son when you die; and he must be brought up like us, not like the farmers in Cortina."

"If I die, and if I have no son, who would the house belong to?" asked Martin reflectively.

They did not answer him. Martin's face was thoughtful and anxious, and he was evidently puzzling over this new idea. He looked from one to the other with an expression of wistful entreaty in his deep-set eyes, and a look of stronger intelligence than they had seen before dawned upon his face.

"My brother," he said, "before I came you were in my place. You did not know I lived; you were the eldest son. I take from you this house, these lands. Take them back from me; they make me sad. I will keep none of them. See! I am not even good enough to be thy servant."

"But you cannot give them back," rejoined Philip. "Perhaps I might take them if you could and let you be happy in your own way. But you are my father's eldest son, and you must have them, and your eldest son after you."

"Ah! what a misery!" he cried. "I take all these things from my brother!"

He spoke mournfully and tears glistened in his eyes. He flung himself down on the floor, and hid his face with his hands in an attitude of despondency and wretchedness.

"If I died," he said at last, "all would come right. Why did you not leave me in Ampezzo? I do you harm; I rob you."

"No, you do me no harm," answered Philip; "besides, you are my brother and we care for you. If you are good we shall love you."

To Philip it seemed as if this brother of his was little more than a child, who might be managed as a child. But Martin shook his head and looked up intently into his father's face.

"You will never love me," he said. "My father, it would be a happy thing for you all if I was to die."

The words were so true that neither of them could contradict him. If Martin died how many of the vexatious complications that beset them would cease, and soon be forgotten by the world! Margaret might have said something to console the sorrowful heart just awaking to life and consciousness, but she was not there.

"If I could only die!" he murmured to himself with exceeding sadness.

The problem of how to atone for his sin presented itself with augmented force to Sidney. This son of his had none of the distinctive vices of a savage, unless it was a touch of ferocious cruelty, not surprising in one whose whole life had been subject to oppression and persecution. He had inherited from himself certain moral qualities which dominated his lower passions; but from his mother he had derived a self-will and a lack of intelligence which must always make him blind and deaf to reason. As he crouched there on the ground, muttering to himself, a vivid image of Sophy came across Sidney's mind. This poor creature could never make a thorough savage, self-reliant and triumphant in his animal nature; neither could he now be trained into an intelligent and contented member of civilized society. What could be done for him?

Andrew Goldsmith had taken himself off immediately upon Sidney's arrival at Brackenburn, but Mary remained in charge of the household. To Mary, as well as to Rachel, it was a great trial to see Philip's place taken by Martin, though he was their own niece's son. Their old-fashioned loyalty to their superiors made them feel as if he was an interloper, one who was utterly unfit for the position which was Philip's due. If Martin could have been brought to England to inherit their own savings, and perhaps succeed his grandfather as the village saddler, they would have welcomed Sophy's son with all their hearts. But it seemed out of the course of nature that he should succeed Sidney, and take Philip's estate. Mary, too, was additionally troubled just now by a scheme of her brother Andrew's.

"Martin's giving you a deal of trouble, sir," said Mary the evening of the day after Martin had been brought back to the Manor House. "If it wasn't for our Andrew, I should say let him go back where he came from. But Andrew won't hear a word of that sort. He says Martin shall have his rights, and as long as he lives he'll see there's fair play. But if you'll let me tell you a secret, sir, Andrew's bent upon getting him married, because he thinks you'll want to keep him single, so as Mr. Philip may come into the estate some day."

"It would be the best thing that could be done for him," said Sidney, "if Andrew could find anybody who would marry him. I mean any good, reputable girl."

"Well, I don't credit it!" replied Mary, "but I think Mrs. Martin at the Rectory put it into Andrew's head at Christmas, talking to him a lot of nonsense. He says he's sure she'd be willing for Miss Phyllis to marry him when he's renovated and polished up a little. But Rachel and me laughed at him, and said, anyhow, the rector 'ud never think of giving his consent to her marrying a poor, ignorant, dark Roman Catholic, worshiping a crucifix set up for him by Miss Dorothy, to say nothing of his rough ways, and dreadful bad manners. Miss Phyllis would never look at him, I said, and Mrs. Martin has never set eyes on him yet. All the same, it put it into Andrew's head that somebody would marry Martin, if he could not marry as high as Miss Phyllis."

It spite of the heaviness of his heart, Sidney could not repress a grim laugh at the thought of Laura marrying Phyllis to his eldest son, when that son was Martin, not Philip.

"Does Andrew know of anyone else?" he asked.

"Why, yes," said Mary, "if he's not hindered. There's a sort of far-off cousin of ours, a pretty, nice-mannered girl, something like our Sophy, you know; she's a clerk in a post office, getting her fifteen pounds a year. Selina Goldsmith her name is, and Andrew wants me to have her here to keep me company, he says, and wait on him and me. But I'm sure he's got another notion in his head, and Rachel told me to tell you, when I wrote to ask her advice."

"Mary, you and Rachel are faithful old friends," he answered, "but believe me when I assure you Margaret and I would be grateful to any good girl who would become Martin's wife and make him happy. There are many women who would marry him for his future position, if Miss Phyllis would not. You have my full sanction to bringing your young kinswoman here, and, if you succeed in marrying her to Martin, half our difficulties will be overcome."

"Andrew will never believe it," said Mary. "And she may sit at table with us when Martin is there, and go out walks with him and Andrew? I shan't let her go without Andrew."

"You may do all you can to promote such a marriage," he replied; "and if Martin is married before next Christmas, we shall be only too glad."

He returned to Apley the next day with a sense of relief in the hopeful prospect which Mary's words had opened to him. It was not improbable that Martin would marry this girl, and if he did, he might lead a secluded and tolerably happy life in the old house at Brackenburn, and gradually fall into occupying himself on the farm that was attached to it. Once suitably married, Martin would be no longer so great an anxiety to them all, and he himself might live down the aspersions so lavishly cast upon his reputation. Martin's children should be brought to Apley at an early age, and, though he would not separate them too much from their parents, they should grow up under his own and Margaret's care. To them he might make that atonement which he could never make to his son.

Andrew Goldsmith rejoiced greatly in the success of his scheme, to which Mary had withdrawn all her opposition. Selina was brought to live at Brackenburn. She was something like Sophy--pretty, lively, and pettish. To exchange her drudgery at the small post office and shop, where she had been glad to earn fifteen pounds a year, for the grandeur of living at a manor house, with very little to do, seemed at first an immense step in life to her girlish ambition. Andrew had rather plainly hinted at what a height she might climb to if she chose, but to his intense disappointment and dismay, Selina seemed much more shocked at Martin's rough ways and bad manners than Miss Dorothy herself was. He had seen Dorothy carry Martin his food from the dining room to the porch, when he refused to sit down to the table, and many a time had Martin persisted in walking barefoot beside her on the turfy moors. But Selina declared she could not put up with his coarseness and vulgarity, and she seemed more inclined to devote herself to winning the admiration of Martin's tutor.

Andrew insisted upon Selina accompanying them often in their rambles on the moors, rambles irksome and tedious to her beyond measure. There was nothing to be seen there save earth and sky. Martin paid but little heed to her. Like all the rest, she could not talk to him. Those who knew his language were gone away, and how long it would be before they came again he did not know. This girl, whose voice was loud and shrill, and who laughed all the time a little giggling laugh, except when she was sulky, who had strange antics, shaking her head at him, and holding up her finger, and pointing here and there, was altogether unlike his signorina, or the gracious and stately lady who was now his father's wife. He liked his rambles best alone, though he could tolerate the companionship of the old man, his grandfather, who was always silent, but who looked at him often with loving eyes. It did not escape his notice that, since his foiled attempt to find his way to London, he was never left long alone but one or other of his guardians sought him out. The fancy took possession of him that Selina had been added to their number to be another spy upon him.

Andrew Goldsmith's impatience was extreme. He was angry with Selina for failing to win his grandson's love, and angry at the thought of Martin not marrying. That would be a triumph for his enemy. If he could only argue with Martin, he fancied something could be done, but all he had to say must be translated by the tutor, who was in Sidney's pay. This barrier of language between himself and Sophy's son was another of the wrongs Sidney had inflicted on him.