Chapter XI

Mortal, that standest on a point of time,
With an eternity on either hand,
Thou hast one duty above all sublime,
Where thou art placed serenely there to stand.

To stand undaunted by the threatening death,
Or harder circumstance of living doom,
Nor less untempted by the odorous breath
Of Hope, that rises even from the tomb.
R. M. MILNES.

It is stated by some who have written on insanity, and who, from study and observation, are competent to form an opinion, that a well-regulated and well-principled mind has (though of course not in every case) a power to controul and withstand madness, which the unprincipled do not possess. Much more has a well-regulated mind the power to controul that temporary insanity which strong excitement brings. Not that a regulated mind feels less; not that the stirring up of the passions and affections produces in such a mind one whit less of disturbance; it is simply that the constant exercise of self-restraint gives to it a power over its own self, enabling it to raise a voice above the storm, and to say “Peace, be still.”

When Everard flew back to his own room on that sad evening, it was because the tumult of his thoughts was becoming unbearable; he needed the relief of solitude that he might by bodily movements check the stir and bewilderment within. He closed his door and resumed his impetuous pacings up and down; and passion--bringing along with it that aberration of intellect it is so apt to bring--was on the point of resuming its sway, when once again the recollection of Mr. Addison’s grave words presented itself to him: “It becomes a man to act like a man.”

It was true, as Mr. Addison had observed, that Everard of late had loosened the reins with which he had so long controlled himself. He had suffered absolute torture of mind in the thoughts of Angela as his brother’s wife, and it had upset him. But though such an upsetting is dangerous, though the loosening of the bent bow is apt to be violent in its recoil, yet in truth the habits of many years are not really destroyed in a short time; that which has once been familiar is not easily swept away, and if invited back is in waiting to return as a ready guest.

He paused as the words flashed upon him in his weary walk, and asked himself whether these passionate movements and unbridled thoughts, were such as could well decide upon a question of such momentous import. With the question his truer self resumed its place, and putting away the child and madman he became a man.

His first resolve was to think no more that night; a resolve easily made, hardly performed. And yet he did perform it, so far at least as his will was concerned, for there is an under current of thought which even the will itself cannot always subdue. He betook himself to his common nightly devotions--since his father’s death, more seriously performed than latterly had been the case--and the attempt to be still stilled him. And once stilled, those devotions, while they increased the sense of the responsibility of his decision, cleared, calmed, and elevated the tone of his mind, bade feeling and passion stand aside, while reason and conscience debated and gave judgment. He then lay down to rest, a strong hand still bridling the flood of thought, and exhausted even by the force of his self-restraint, sleep came at last and steeped him in the repose he needed.

He woke early, for the keen sense of a task to be done influences the mind even in sleep, and calls it to its duties; but he woke calm and refreshed, and with renewed energies to set himself to think.

In the course of the few early hours that followed, his decision was made, and once made, he was prepared to act upon it. He decided to accept his father’s will. This decision was not brought about by any consideration of the question generally; in a thousand cases his weight might have been thrown into the opposite scale. He was prepared to be blamed; prepared to be misinterpreted; prepared for evil report, and the imputation of selfish motives. Every possibility lay clear before his eyes, and yet his resolve was taken. It was he himself who could not do otherwise; it was he, Everard Vavasour, who could not oppose the last request of the father he had loved so well, and whom in life he had trusted with so entire and perfect a trust.

No decision was ever made more solemnly, and never in his life had such a prayer passed from Everard’s lips, as that morning’s prayer, that he might do his duty, whatever the cost might be, in the new circumstances on which he was entering.

Thus resolved, he went down to breakfast, the composure of decision, and something of the dignity of a brave and holy purpose already marking his air and features. A brave and holy purpose--some may think a mistaken one--but brave and holy in him, because a sincere and costly one.

He found Hope alone in the breakfast-room. She was standing at the window while she waited for her cousins. Her bearing up through her many sad offices and many trials had been wonderful; but as she stood now in the light, her fair skin contrasting with her mourning dress, Everard saw how trial had touched her. The soft, childlike roundness of her features was gone, and though her countenance was tranquil, it had not the unearthly quietness and serenity of other days.

He went to her, and put his arm round her with a warmth natural to him, yet rarely indulged in, and asked, “Are you as miserable, dear Hope, as all the rest in this miserable house?”

She looked up in his face.

“I know you must be unhappy, Everard, but it must not be _yesterday_ that makes you so.”

His lips trembled, and tears came into his eyes.

Before he could steady his voice to answer, she went on--“Oh! Everard, we think too much of these things. If it should be for the saving of Robert’s soul, you will not regret what it cost you. I knew how it would be; I dreaded it long ago; I felt it certain in those last days; and though it was grief and pain at first, I see in it now the dawn of that day for which we have waited so long. Oh! Everard, be stedfast, and do not fear, and what seems a grief will be a blessing.”

He looked into her eyes, kindling with no earthly light, and felt their fire animating his soul. “God bless you, dearest Hope,” he said, stooping and kissing her, “you have given me comfort and courage. You must pray,” he added with solemn earnestness, “for me as you do for Robert, for him and for me, that we may not faint or fail.”

Robert entered as he spoke, and Hope turned from the window to meet him, and to take her seat at the table. Everard leant out to compose himself and to gather courage, and while he did so, Robert sat down.

When he turned, Robert was seated by Hope, and the place at the table which had been his father’s, that place in which with so keen a pang he had seen Robert the day before, was left for him.

Such things are but trifles, but some trifles speak with a thundering voice. Everard’s heart swelled, and for a moment with a return of passion he was about even with fierceness and irritation, to remove his chair to the vacant place opposite Robert, when a glance from Hope calmed him. His blood rose to his temples, but he sat down, feeling that in so doing he announced to Robert that his decision was made. That Robert so accepted it was plain from the deepening colour on his cheek, and his eyes stedfastly bent downward. And thus the new life began at Audley Court.

Hope left the room before her cousins had done breakfast, and they lingered at the table, both longing yet unable to speak. It was not till both had risen, and Robert, after wandering once or twice absently about the room, had actually his hand on the door to leave it, that Everard took courage and arrested him.

“Robert!”

Robert turned back at once, and the brothers stood flushed and agitated facing each other.

Everard composed himself with an effort and then said gravely, “Robert, I have determined to accept my father’s will.”

“Of course,” said Robert hurriedly. “Did you think I expected or even wished it should be otherwise?”

“I cannot tell. I have thought till I have been nearly mad. Oh! Robert, what should you do, if you stood in my place?”

“What _I_ should do is not to the purpose,” he said sadly. “I never did obey my father’s wishes as you have done, but if I were _you_ Everard, I should do as you do. You never have, and you cannot now disobey him.”

“I cannot,” Everard said passionately.

“And besides, you have _promised_. Do you think I forget _that_ time, and _those_ words, and _your_ answer. No never, if I live a hundred years.”

Everard held out his hand, with a vain effort at composure, and, as he grasped that of his brother, agitatedly said, “Then forgive me now and for ever, and promise that no distrust or ill-will shall ever grow up between us.”

“I promise,” Robert said gravely, and Everard withdrew his hand and hurried out of the room.

An hour or two later he came down and looked into the library. Robert was sitting at the writing table with a pen in his hand, and a harassed look on his brow.

Everard asked him to walk with him. Robert acquiesced, and throwing down his pen with an air of relief, and a toss of impatience and disgust, followed him from the room.

“There are some things, Robert,” Everard began, in the voice of grave composure in which he evidently tried to speak, “the discussion of which cannot be delayed. What you would have done for me you must let me do for you, and you must believe that it is not to remind you of what has passed; not to remind you of what I now must be, that I bring them forward. What is done cannot be undone--let us make it bearable by openness and truth with each other.”

“I am very sure, Everard, whatever you do is done from kindness,” Robert replied; some anxiety in his tone, and yet a kind of relief also in his brother’s plain dealing. “I perfectly trust you.”

“Perhaps you guess what I am going to say. If this change gets wind, it may cause you some trouble. There may be unpleasant applications. Dear Robert, will you remember that all is to be as if it were yours. It seems so strange to have to say it, I hardly know how, but I do it as I would be done by. Will you write to Mr. Low and make what arrangements you please, and promise me that no past thing shall distress you more. For the future--that needs more thought than we can give it now.”

More than once Robert’s colour rose. He did feel, and feel acutely the pain and humiliation in thus being subject to his brother, but his better nature struggled and conquered.

“Thanks, Everard, a thousand times. I will not be such a pitiful fool as to refuse your kindness, or conceal from you that it is a relief. I was tormenting myself with those cursed, yes cursed debts when you came in. I will write to Mr. Low as you tell me, and we will see what can be done. As to the future I have already thought of that, but I cannot speak of it to-day. To-morrow I will talk to you again. In the meanwhile you had better think for me. Something I must do.”

“_Must_ you?” Everard asked with a collected manner, but a glow of crimson on his cheek.

Robert looked at him, but merely said, “I suppose so.” And as after this allusion constraint again stole over them, the walk was not much prolonged.

One other and most painful duty remained for Everard on that day. It was to announce to his mother his decision. He had seen her in the morning, but the same calm kiss and silent greeting and averted eyes had received him. Duty received and endured him; he saw that; but feeling rebelled. He shrank from what had to be done.

To prepare her in some degree for his announcement, he desired Hope to ask if he might speak to her. It was late in the afternoon, and having at Robert’s earnest request (to whom she could less than ever refuse anything) taken a tottering walk round the garden, she was lying in her room, weeping in darkness and alone. Her sense of duty to her husband compelled her to acquiesce in his petition, and Everard entered; but nothing invited him to her side. He approached and she allowed him to take his seat by her; but still no look helped or cheered him.

“Mother,” he began at once in his deep voice, touching from its tremulous earnestness, “will you not give me your blessing on the task I have undertaken?”

They were bold words, so bold that she was startled from her coldness, and looked at him.

The movement helped and encouraged him. “It is a task hard enough at the best,” he continued, “but without your love and blessing more than I have power to bear. Mother,” he went on in strong agitation, seizing both her hands and gazing into her face, “I know what you must feel towards me, but will you not consider _who_ it was that laid it on me, and to _his_ will submit as I do.”

She was overcome. For the moment melted, even though rebellious still. She drew him towards her, and twice kissed his brow. No words followed; no words, indeed, could have been spoken; for that relenting of the heart was not such as language could express: it was no blessing, no sanction, it was but the softened spirit shewing sympathy with her son’s pain. Such as it was, however, Everard was satisfied and relieved; and unwilling at that time to distress her further, kissed her, and left her alone.