"I hope-I quite understand. Do not let me be in your way." And the brothers repaired to the library, where Julius's first words were, "Miles, you must make up your mind. They are getting up a requisition to you to stand for Wil'sbro'."
"To me?"
"You are the most obvious person, and the feeling for dear Raymond is so strong as to prevent any contest. Whitlock told Bindon yesterday that you should have no trouble."
"I can't. It is absurd. I know nothing about it. My poor mother bred up Raymond for nothing else. Don't you remember how she made him read history, volumes upon volumes, while I was learning nothing but the ropes? I declare, Julius, there he goes."
"Who?"
"Why, that old ass, down to hunt up poor Rosamond; I don't believe he thinks there's any one in the world but his daughter. I declare I'll hail him and stop him."
"No, no, Miles, Rosamond can take care of herself. She won't come till she has seen to her patients down there; and, after all, Cecil's is the saddest case, poor thing. To return. If you don't take to politics in the end, I think you should let them put you in now, if only as a stop-gap, or we shall get some one whom it may not be easy to get rid of."
"There's something in that, but I can't accept without knowing my position, and I would not utter a word to disturb my mother till it occurs to her of herself."
"Now that Frank is better?"
"No. It will all come on her soon enough."
"Would you stand if she made it right for you?"
"I can't tell. There would be no punishment so great to my poor Anne as to be dragged into society, and I don't know how she would bear it, even if she had no scruples. We never thought of anything but settling in Glen Fraser, only I wanted her to know you all. If that poor Cecil only had a child we could be free to go back. Poor Anne!"
"Do you think she is still as homesick as at first?"
"Well, not quite, perhaps; but I never can get to talk to her, and I know it is a terrible sacrifice to her to live here at all, and I won't have her forced into a style of thing against her conscience. If they come to me, I shall tell them to take Mr. Bowater."
"Poor Mr. Bowater! He will have little heart."
"Who else is there? That fellow Moy would like it, I suppose."
"That fellow Moy may have to change his note," said Julius. "I think we have the means of clearing Archie, when we can see how to use them."
Miles gave a sort of leap as he stood by the fire. "Tell me. Archie! I had no heart to write to him, poor fellow."
"Write to him by all means, but say nothing here." And Julius briefly repeated what Gadley had said.
"I don't see that the scoundrel Moy deserves any consideration."
"I don't know whether he does; but he has a good wife, ailing and sickly, and a daughter. He has lived in good report these many years, and I think it is due to him and to old Proudfoot not to spread the report before giving him warning. In fact, I am not sure whether we could proceed against him as things stand."
"It is just what Raymond would have known," said Miles, with a sigh; "but you are right, Julius, one ought to give him fair play. Ah! what's that, Jenkins?-Note from Lord Belfort? Wait for an answer. Can't they give one any peace?"
While Miles was reluctantly answering his note, Julius, resolving to act before he was forbidden, mounted to Frank's room, requested to speak with his mother, and propelled her into the outer room, leaving Anne on guard.
"Now then, my dear," she said, "I have known a talk must soon come. You have all been very good to me to leave it so long."
"I am come now without poor Miles's knowledge or consent," said Julius, "because it is necessary for him to know what to do."
"He will give up the navy," said his mother. "O, Julius! does he require to be told that he-?" and she laid her head on her son's shoulder.
"It is what he cannot bear to be told; but what drives me on is that Whitlock tells me that the Wil'sbro' people want to bring him in at once, as the strongest proof of their feeling for Raymond."
"Yes," she raised her head proudly, "of course he must come forward. He need have no doubt. Send him to me, Julius, I will tell him to open letters, and put matters in train. Perhaps you will write to Graves for me, if he does not like it, poor boy."
She had roused herself into the woman of business, and when Miles, after some indignation at her having been disturbed, obeyed the summons, she held out her arms, and became the consoler.
"Come, my boy," she said, "we must face it sooner or later. You must stand foremost and take up his work for him."
"Oh, mother! mother! you know how little I am able," said Miles, covering his face with his hands.
"You do not bring his burthened heart to the task," she said. "If you had watched and felt with him, as perhaps only his mother could, you would know that I can be content that the long heartache should have ceased, where the weary are at rest. Yes, Miles, I feel as if I had put him to sleep after a long day of pain, as when he was a little child."
They hardened themselves to the discussion, Mrs. Poynsett explaining what she thought the due of her eldest son, only that Cecil's jointure would diminish the amount at her disposal. Indeed, when she was once aroused, she attended the most fully; but when Miles found her apologizing for only affording him the little house in the village, he cried out with consternation.
"My dear," she said, "it is best so; I will not be a burthen on you young ones. I see the mistake."
"I know," stammered Miles, "my poor Anne is not up to your mark-not clever like you or Jenny-but I thought you did like her pretty handy ways."
"I feel them and love them with all my heart; but I cannot have her happiness and yours sacrificed to me. Yes, you boys love the old nest; but even Julius and Rose rejoice in their own, and you must see what she really wishes, not what she thinks her duty. Take her out walking, you both need it badly enough."
They ventured to comply, and eluding Mr. Charnock, went into the park, silvery with the unstanched dews, and the leaves floating down one by one like golden rain. "Not much like the Bush," said Miles.
"No," was all Anne durst say.
"Poor Nan, how dreary it must have looked to you last year!"
"I am afraid I wrote very complaining letters!"
"Not complaining, but a direful little effort at content, showing the more piteously, because involuntarily, what a mistake I had made."
"No, no mistake. Indeed, Miles, it was not. Nothing else would have cured me of the dreadful uncharitableness which was the chief cause of my unhappiness, and if I had not been so forlorn, I should never have seen how good and patient your mother was with me. Yes, I mean it. I read over my old diary and saw how tiresome and presumptuous I was, and how wonderfully she bore with me, and so did Julius and Rosamond, while all the time I fancied them-no Christians."
"Ah! you child! You know I would never have done it if I had known you were to be swamped among brides. At any rate, this poor old place doesn't look so woefully dismal and hateful to you now."
"It could not, where you are, and where I have so many to know and love."
"You can bear the downfall of our Bush schemes?"
"Your duty is here now."
"Are you grieved, little one?"
"I don't know. I should like to have seen mamma; but she does not need me now as your mother does."
"Then you are willing to be her daughter?"
"I have tried hard, and she is very kind; but I am far too dull and ignorant for her. I can only wait upon her; but when she has you and Julius to talk to, my stupidity will not matter."
"Would you be content to devote yourself to her, instead of making a home of our own?"
"She can't be left alone in that great house."
"The question is, can you be happy in it? or do you wish for a house to ourselves?"
"You don't, Miles, it is your own home."
"That's not the question."
"Miles, why do you look at me so?"