Clara! My parting words to her, when I had unclasped from my neck those kind arms which would fain have held me to home for ever, had expressed a promise that was yet unfulfilled. I trembled as I now thought on my sister's situation. Not knowing whither I had turned my steps on leaving home; uncertain to what extremities my despair might hurry me; absolutely ignorant even whether she might ever see me again—it was terrible to reflect on the suspense under which she might be suffering, at this very moment, on my account. My promise to write to her, was of all promises the most vitally important, and the first that should be fulfilled.
My letter was very short. I communicated to her the address of the house in which I was living (well knowing that nothing but positive information on this point would effectually relieve her anxiety)—I asked her to write in reply, and let me hear some news of her, the best that she could give—and I entreated her to believe implicitly in my patience and courage under every disaster; and to feel assured that, whatever happened, I should never lose the hope of soon meeting her again. Of the perils that beset me, of the wrong and injury I might yet be condemned to endure, I said nothing. Those were truths which I was determined to conceal from her, to the last. She had suffered for me more than I dared think of, already!
I sent my letter by hand, so as to ensure its immediate delivery. In writing those few simple lines, I had no suspicion of the important results which they were destined to produce. In thinking of to-morrow, and of all the events which to-morrow might bring with it, I little thought whose voice would be the first to greet me the next day, whose hand would be held out to me as the helping hand of a friend.
VI.
It was still early in the morning, when a loud knock sounded at the house-door, and I heard the landlady calling to the servant: "A gentleman to see the gentleman who came in last night." The moment the words reached me, my thoughts recurred to the letter of yesterday—Had Mannion found me out in my retreat? As the suspicion crossed my mind, the door opened, and the visitor entered.
I looked at him in speechless astonishment. It was my elder brother! It was Ralph himself who now walked into the room!
"Well, Basil! how are you?" he said, with his old off-hand manner and hearty voice.
"Ralph! You in England!—you here!"
"I came back from Italy last night. Basil, how awfully you're changed! I hardly know you again."
His manner altered as he spoke the last words. The look of sorrow and alarm which he fixed on me, went to my heart. I thought of holiday-time, when we were boys; of Ralph's boisterous ways with me; of his good-humoured school-frolics, at my expense; of the strong bond of union between us, so strangely compounded of my weakness and his strength; of my passive and of his active nature; I saw how little he had changed since that time, and knew, as I never knew before, how miserably I was altered. All the shame and grief of my banishment from home came back on me, at sight of his friendly, familiar face. I struggled hard to keep my self-possession, and tried to bid him welcome cheerfully; but the effort was too much for me. I turned away my head, as I took his hand; for the old school-boy feeling of not letting Ralph see that I was in tears, influenced me still.
"Basil! Basil! what are you about? This won't do. Look up, and listen to me. I have promised Clara to pull you through this wretched mess; and I'll do it. Get a chair, and give me a light. I'm going to sit on your bed, smoke a cigar, and have a long talk with you."
While he was lighting his cigar, I looked more closely at him than before. Though he was the same as ever in manner; though his expression still preserved its reckless levity of former days, I now detected that he had changed a little in some other respects. His features had become coarser—dissipation had begun to mark them. His spare, active, muscular figure had filled out; he was dressed rather carelessly; and of all his trinkets and chains of early times, not one appeared about him now. Ralph looked prematurely middle-aged, since I had seen him last.
"Well," he began, "first of all, about my coming back. The fact is, the morganatic Mrs. Ralph—" (he referred to his last mistress) "wanted to see England, and I was tired of being abroad. So I brought her back with me; and we're going to live quietly, somewhere in the Brompton neighbourhood. That woman has been my salvation—you must come and see her. She has broke me of gaming altogether; I was going to the devil as fast as I could, when she stopped me—but you know all about it, of course. Welclass="underline" we got to London yesterday afternoon; and in the evening I left her at the hotel, and went to report myself at home. There, the first thing I heard, was that you had cut me out of my old original distinction of being the family scamp. Don't look distressed, Basil; I'm not laughing at you; I've come to do something better than that. Never mind my talk: nothing in the world ever was serious to me, and nothing ever will be."
He stopped to knock the ash off his cigar, and settle himself more comfortably on my bed; then proceeded.
"It has been my ill-luck to see my father pretty seriously offended on more than one occasion; but I never saw him so very quiet and so very dangerous as last night when he was telling me about you. I remember well enough how he spoke and looked, when he caught me putting away my trout-flies in the pages of that family history of his; but it was nothing to see him or hear him then, to what it is now. I can tell you this, Basil—if I believed in what the poetical people call a broken heart (which I don't), I should be almost afraid that he was broken-hearted. I saw it was no use to say a word for you just yet, so I sat quiet and listened to him till I got my dismissal for the evening. My next proceeding was to go up-stairs, and see Clara. Upstairs, I give you my word of honour, it was worse still. Clara was walking about the room with your letter in her hand—just reach me the matches: my cigar's out. Some men can talk and smoke in equal proportions—I never could.
"You know as well as I do," he continued when he had relit his cigar, "that Clara is not usually demonstrative. I always thought her rather a cold temperament—but the moment I put my head in at the door, I found I'd been just as great a fool on that point as on most others. Basil, the scream Clara gave when she first saw me, and the look in her eyes when she talked about you, positively frightened me. I can't describe anything; and I hate descriptions by other men (most likely on that very account): so I won't describe what she said and did. I'll only tell you that it ended in my promising to come here the first thing this morning; promising to get you out of the scrape; promising, in short, everything she asked me. So here I am, ready for your business before my own. The fair partner of my existence is at the hotel, half-frantic because I won't go lodging-hunting with her; but Clara is paramount, Clara is the first thought. Somebody must be a good boy at home; and now you have resigned, I'm going to try and succeed you, by way of a change!"
"Ralph! Ralph! can you mention Clara's name, and that woman's name, in the same breath? Did you leave Clara quieter and better! For God's sake be serious about that, though serious about nothing else!"
"Gently, Basil! Doucement mon ami! I did leave her quieter: my promise made her look almost like herself again. As for what you say about mentioning Clara and Mrs. Ralph in the same breath, I've been talking and smoking till I have no second breaths left to devote to second-rate virtue. There is an unanswerable reason for you, if you want one! And now let us get to the business that brings me here. I don't want to worry you by raking up this miserable mess again, from beginning to end, in your presence; but I must make sure at the same time that I have got hold of the right story, or I can't be of any use to you. My father was a little obscure on certain points. He talked enough, and more than enough, about consequences to the family, about his own affliction, about his giving you up for ever; and, in short, about everything but the case itself as it really stands against us. Now that is just what I ought to be put up to, and must be put up to. Let me tell you in three words what I was told last night."