There was much to occasion this state of mind. His life had been without great troubles, but with many mortifications; he had never been long satisfied with himself or his pursuits, his ardour had only been the prelude to vexation and self-abasement, and in his station in the world there was little incentive to exertion. He had a strong sense of responsibility, with a temperament made up of tenderness, refinement, and inertness, such as shrank from the career set before him. He had seen just enough of political life to destroy any romance of patriotism, and to make him regard it as little more than party spirit, and dread the hardening and deadening process on the mind. He had a dismal experience of his own philanthropy; and he had a conscience that would not sit down satisfied with selfish ease, pleasure, or intellectual pursuits. His smooth, bright, loving temper had made him happy; but the past was all melancholy, neglect, and futile enterprise; he had no attaching home-no future visions; and, on the outskirts of manhood, he shrank back from the turmoil, the temptations, and the roughness that awaited him-nay, from the mere effort of perseverance, and could almost have sighed to think how nearly the death-pang had been over, and the home of Love, Life, and Light had been won for ever:-
'I am come that they might have life, And that they might have it more abundantly.'
The words returned on him, and with them what his father had said, 'You have had a thread running through your life.' He was in a state between sleeping and waking, when the confines of reflection and dreaming came very near together, and when vague impressions, hardly noticed at the time they were made, began to tell on him without his own conscious volition. It was to him as if from that brightening eastern heaven, multitudes of threads of light were floating hither and thither, as he had often watched the gossamer undulating in the sunshine. Some were firm, purely white, and glistening here and there with rainbow tints as they tended straight upwards, shining more and more into the perfect day; but for the most part they were tangled together in inextricable confusion, intermingled with many a broken end, like fleeces of cobweb driven together by the autumn wind,-some sailing aimlessly, or with shattered tangled strands- some white, some dark, some anchored to mere leaves or sprays, some tending down to the abyss, but all in such a perplexed maze that the eye could seldom trace which were directed up, which downwards, which were of pure texture, which defiled and stained.
In the abortive, unsatisfactory attempt to follow out one fluctuating clue, not without whiteness, and heaving often upwards, but frail, wavering, ravelled, and tangled, so that scarcely could he find one line that held together, Louis awoke to find his father wondering that he could sleep with the sun shining full on his face.
'It was hardly quite a dream,' said Louis, as he related it to Mrs. Frost.
'It would make a very pretty allegory.'
'It is too real for that just now,' he said. 'It was the moral of all my broken strands that Mary held up to me yesterday.'
'I hope you are going to do more than point your moral, my dear. You always were good at that.'
'I mean it,' said Louis, earnestly. 'I do not believe such an illness-ay, or such a dream-can come for nothing.'
So back went his thoughts to the flaws in his own course; and chiefly he bewailed his want of sympathy for his father. Material obedience and submission had been yielded, but, having little cause to believe himself beloved, his heart had never been called into action so as to soften the clashings of two essentially dissimilar characters. Instead of rebelling, or even of murmuring, he had hid disappointment in indifference, taken refuge in levity and versatility, and even consoled himself by sporting with what he regarded as prejudice or unjust displeasure. All this cost him much regret and self-reproach at each proof of the affection so long veiled by reserve. Never would he have given pain, had he guessed that his father could feel; but he had grown up to imagine the whole man made up of politics and conventionalities, and his new discoveries gave him at least as much contrition as pleasure.
After long study of the debates, that morning, his father prepared to write. Louis asked for the paper, saying his senses would just serve for the advertisements, but presently he made an exclamation of surprise at beholding, in full progress, the measure which had brought Sir Miles Oakstead to Ormersfield, one of peculiar interest to the Earl. His blank look of wonder amused Mrs. Ponsonby, but seemed somewhat to hurt his father.
'You did not suppose I could attend to such matters now?' he said.
'But I am so much better!'
Fearing that the habit of reserve would check any exchange of feeling, Mrs. Ponsonby said, 'Did you fancy your father could not think of you except upon compulsion?'
'I beg your pardon, father,' said Louis, smiling, while a tear rose to his eyes, 'I little thought I was obstructing the business of the nation. What will Sir Miles do to me?'
'Sir Miles has written a most kind and gratifying letter,' said Lord Ormersfield, 'expressing great anxiety for you, and a high opinion of your powers.'
Louis had never heard of his own powers, except for mischief, and the colour returned to his cheeks, as he listened to the kind and cordial letter, written in the first shock of the tidings of the accident. He enjoyed the pleasure it gave his father far more than the commendation to himself; for he well knew, as he said, that 'there is something embellishing in a catastrophe,' and he supposed 'that had driven out the rose-coloured pastor.'
'There is always indulgence at your age,' said the Earl. 'You have created an impression which may be of great importance to you by-and- by.'
Louis recurred to politics. The measure was one which approved itself to his mind, and he showed all the interest which was usually stifled, by such subjects being forced on him. He was distressed at detaining his father when his presence might be essential to the success of his party, and the Earl could not bear to leave him while still confined to his bed. The little scene, so calm, and apparently so cold, seemed to cement the attachment of father and son, by convincing Louis of the full extent of his father's love; and his enthusiasm began to invest the Earl's grey head with a perfect halo of wisdom slighted and affection injured; and the tenor of his thread of life shone out bright and silvery before him, spun out of projects of devoting heart and soul to his father's happiness, and meriting his fondness.
The grave Earl was looking through a magnifying-glass no less powerful. He had not been so happy since his marriage; the consciousness of his own cold manner made him grateful for any demonstration from his son, and the many little graces of look and manner which Louis had inherited from his mother added to the charm. The sense of previous injustice enhanced all his good qualities, and it was easy to believe him perfect, while nothing was required of him but to lie still. Day and night did Lord Ormersfield wait upon him, grudging every moment spent away from him, and trying to forestall each wish, till he became almost afraid to express a desire, on account of the trouble it would cause. Mary found the Earl one day wandering among the vines in the old hothouse, in search of a flower, when, to her amusement, he selected a stiff pert double hyacinth, the special aversion of his son, who nevertheless received it most graciously, and would fain have concealed the headache caused by the scent, until Mrs. Frost privately abstracted it. Another day, he went, unasked, to hasten the birdstuffer in finishing the rose- coloured pastor; and when it came, himself brought it up-stairs, unpacked it, and set it up where Louis could best admire its black nodding crest and pink wings; unaware that to his son it seemed a memento of his own misdeeds-a perpetual lesson against wayward carelessness.