"I can well believe it," said Julius, not to be hindered now from grasping Mr. Moy's hand.
It seemed to be a comfort now to tell the whole story in detail. Moy, the favoured and trusted articled clerk at first, then the partner, the lover and husband of the daughter, had been a model of steadiness and success so early, that when some men's youthful follies are wearing off, he had begun to weary of the monotony of the office, and after beginning as Mentor to his young brother-in- law, George Proudfoot, had gradually been carried along by the fascination of Tom Vivian's society to share in the same perilous pursuits, until both had incurred a debt to him far beyond their powers, while he was likewise so deeply involved, that no bonds of George Proudfoot would avail him.
Then came the temptation of Mrs. Poynsett's cheque, suggested, perhaps in jest, by Vivian, but growing on them as the feasibility of using it became clear. It was so easy to make it appear to Archie Douglas that the letter was simply an inquiry for the lost one. Mr. Proudfoot, the father, was out of reach; Mrs. Poynsett would continue to think the cheque lost in the post; and Tom Vivian undertook to get it presented for payment through persons who would guard against its being tracked. The sum exceeded the debt, but he would return the overplus to them, and they both cherished the hope of returning it with interest. Indeed, it had been but a half consent on the part of either, elicited only by the dire alternative of exposure; the envelope and letter were destroyed, and Vivian carried off the cheque to some of the Jews with whom he had had only too many transactions, and they never met him again.
Moy's part all along had been half cowardice, half ambition. The sense of that act and of its consequences had gnawed at his heart through all his success; but to cast himself down from his position as partner and son-in-law of Mr. Proudfoot, the keen, clever, trusted, confidential agent of half the families around-to let his wife know his shame and that of her brother, and to degrade his daughter into the daughter of a felon-was more than he could bear; and he had gone on trying to drown the sense of that one lapse in the prosperity of his career and his efforts to place his daughter in the first ranks of society. No doubt the having done an injury to the Poynsett family had been the true secret of that enmity, more than political, which he had always shown to Raymond; and after thinking Gadley safer out of that office, and having yielded to his solicitations and set him up at the Three Pigeons, he had been almost compelled to bid for popularity by using his position as a magistrate to protect the blackguardism of the town. He had been meant for better things, and had been dragged on against his conscience and judgment by the exigencies of his unhappy secret; and when the daughter, for whose sake he had sacrificed his better self, had only been led by her position into the follies and extravagances of the worst part of the society into which she had been introduced, and threw herself into the hands of a dissipated gambler, to whom her fortune made her a desirable prey-truly his sin had found him out.
His fight at first had been partly force of habit, but he was so entirely crushed that they could only have pity on him when he put himself so entirely in their hands, only begging for forbearance to his wife and her aged father, and entreating that principal, interest, and compound interest might at once be tendered to Mrs. Poynsett.
The brothers could answer for nothing. Archie must decide for himself what he would accept as restoration of his character, and Mrs. Poynsett could alone answer as to whether she would accept the compensation. But neither of them could be hard on one so stricken and sorrowful, and they did not expect hardness from their mother and cousin, especially so far as old Mr. Proudfoot and his daughter were concerned.
That the confession was made, and that Archie should be cleared, was enough for Julius to carry to Herbert's room, while Miles repaired to his mother. It was known in the sick-room where the brothers had been, and Julius was watched as he crossed the street by Jenny's eager eye, and she met him at the door of the outer room with a face of welcome.
"Come in and tell us all," she said. "I see it is good news." Herbert was quite well enough to bear good news in full detail as he lay, not saying much, but smiling his welcome, and listening with ears almost as eager as his sister's. And as Julius told of the crushed and broken man, Jenny's tears rose to her eyes, and she pressed her brother's hand and whispered, "Thanks, dear boy!"
"Small thanks to me."
"Yes, I can enjoy it now," said Jenny; "thanks to you for forcing the bitterness out of me."
"Can you bear a little more good news, Herbert?" said Julius. "Who do you think is to have St. Nicholas?"
"Not William Easterby? That's too good to be true."
"But so it is. All the Senior Fellows dropped it like a red-hot coal."
"I thought Dwight wanted to marry?"
"Yes, but the lady's friends won't hear of his taking her there; so it has come down to young Easterby. He can't be inducted of course yet; but he has written to say he will come down on Saturday and take matters in hand."
"The services on Sunday? Oh!" said Herbert, with as great a gasp of relief as if he had been responsible for them; and, indeed, Rosamond declared that both her husband and Mr. Bindon looked like new men since Wil'sbro' was off their backs. Archie was coming back that evening. Jenny much longed to show her two treasures to each other, for it was a useless risk for the healthy man, and the sick one was too weak and tired to wish for a new face, or the trouble of speaking; nay, he could not easily bring himself to cheerful acquiescence in even his favourite Lady Rose taking his sister's place to set her free for an evening with Archie at the Hall.
Mrs. Poynsett was in the drawing-room. She had taken courage to encounter the down-stair associations, saying she would make it no sadder for the dear boy than she could help, and so Miles had carried her down to meet one who had been always as one of her own sons.
And thus it was that she gathered him into her embrace, while the great strong man, only then fully realizing all the changes, sobbed uncontrollably beside her.
"My boy, my poor Archie," she said, "you are come at last. Did you not know you still had a mother to trust to?"
"I ought to have known it," said Archie, in a choked voice. "Oh that I had seen Jenny in London!"
For indeed it had become plain that it had been his flight that had given opportunity and substance to the accusation. If he had remained, backed by the confidence of such a family as the Poynsetts, Gadley would have seen that testimony in his favour would be the safer and more profitable speculation; and Moy himself, as he had said, would have testified to the innocence of a living man on the spot, though he had let the blame rest on one whom he thought in the depths of the sea. Archie's want of moral courage had been his ruin. It had led him to the scene of temptation rather than resist his companions, and had thus given colour to the accusation, and in the absence of both Joanna and of his cousins, it had prevented him from facing the danger.
This sense made him the more willing to be forbearing, when, after dinner, the whole council sat round to hear in full the history of the interview with Mr. Moy; Anne taking up her position beside Frank, with whom, between her pencil and the finger-alphabet, she had established such a language as to make her his best interpreter of whatever was passing in the room.
"One could not help being sorry for Moy," said Miles, as he concluded; "he turns out to be but half the villain after all, made so rather by acquiescence than by his own free will."
"But reaping the profit," said Mrs. Poynsett.
"Yes, though in ignorance of the injury he was doing, and thus climbing to a height that makes his fall the worse. I am sorry for old Proudfoot too," added Julius. "I believe they have not ventured to tell him of his granddaughter's marriage."