There & Back Part 41

"I am afraid, from what Victoria tells me, that something must have occurred to annoy you seriously!"

"Nothing at all worth mentioning. He is an odd person, that workman of yours!"

"He is peculiar," granted Barbara, doubtful of her own honesty because of the different sense in which she used the word from that in which it would be taken; "but I am certain he would not willingly vex any one."

"Children will be troublesome!" drawled her ladys.h.i.+p.

"Particularly Victoria," returned Barbara. "Mr. Tuke cannot bear to have his work put in jeopardy!"

"Very excusable in him."

Barbara was surprised at her consideration, and thought she must somehow be pleased with Richard.

"It would astonish you to hear him talk sometimes," she said. "There is something remarkable about the young man. He must have a history somewhere!"

She had been thinking whether it was fair to sir Wilton and his family to conceal the momentous fact she alone of their friends knew: were they not those, next to Richard himself, most concerned in it? Should lady Ann be allowed to go on regarding the property as the inheritance of her son, when at any instant it might be swept from his hold? Had they not a right to some preparation for the change? If there was another son, and he the heir, ought she not at least to know that there was such a person? She had resolved, that very morning, to give lady Ann a hint of the danger to which she was exposed.

But there was another reflection, more potent yet, that urged Barbara to speak. Since learning Alice's secret, she had found herself more swiftly drawn toward Richard, nor could she escape the thought that he might one day ask her to be his wife: it would be painful then to know that she had made progress in his regard by being imagined his superior, when she knew she was not! Incapable of laying a snare, was she not submitting to the advantage of an ignorance? The misconception she was thus risking in the future, had already often prevented her from going to Mortgrange.

Richard, she was certain, knew her better than ever to misjudge her, but she shrank from the suspicion of any one that she had hidden what she knew for the sake of securing Richard's preference before their relations were altered--when, on a level with the choice of society, he might well think differently of her.

Barbara was one of those to whom concealment is a positive pain. She had a natural hatred, most healthy and Christian, to all secrets as such; and to take any advantage of one would have seemed to her a loathsome thing. She constantly wanted to say all that was in her, and when she must not, she suffered.

"He may have good blood in him on one side," suggested lady Ann. "He was rude to me, but I dare say it was the child's fault. He seems intelligent!"

"He is more than intelligent. I suspect him of being a genius."

"I should have thought him a tradesman all over!"

"But wouldn't genius by and by make a gentleman of him?"

"Not in the least. It might make him grow to look like one."

"Isn't that the same? Isn't it all in the look?"

"By no means. A man must _be_ a gentleman or he is nothing! A gentleman would rather not have been born than not be a gentleman!" said lady Ann.

She spoke to an ignorant person from the colonies, where they could not be supposed to understand such things, and never suspected the danger she and her false importance were in with the little colonial girl.

"But if his parents were gentlefolk?" suggested Barbara.

"Birth predetermines style, both in body and mind, I grant," said lady Ann; "education and society must do their parts to make any man a gentleman; and where all has been done, I must confess to having seen remarkable failures. Bad blood must of course have got in somehow."

"I wish I knew what makes a gentleman!" sighed Barbara. "I have all my life been trying to understand the thing.--Tell me, lady Ann--to be a gentleman, must a man be a good man?"

"I am sorry to say," she answered, "it is not in the least necessary."

"Then a gentleman may do bad things, and be a gentleman still?"

"Yes--that is, _some_ bad things."

"Do you mean--not _many_ bad things?"

"No; I mean certain kinds of bad things."

"Such as cheating at cards?"

"No. If he were found doing that, he would be expelled from any club in London."

"May he tell lies, then?"

"Certainly not! It is a very ungentlemanly thing to tell lies."

"Then, if a man tells a lie, he is not a gentleman?"

"I do not say that; I say that to tell lies is ungentlemanly?"

"Does that mean that he may tell _some_ lies, and yet be a gentleman?"

Lady Ann was afraid to go on. She saw that to go on answering the girl from the colonies, with her troublesome freedom of thought and question, might land her in a bog of contradictions.

"How many lies may a gentleman tell in a day?" pursued the straight-going Barbara.

"Not any," answered lady Ann.

"Does the same rule hold for ladies?"

"Y--e--s----I should say so," replied her ladys.h.i.+p--with hesitation, for she suspected being slowly driven into some snare. She knew she was not careful enough to speak the truth--so much she confessed to herself, the fact being that, to serve any purpose she thought worth gaining, she would lie without a scruple--taking care, however, to keep the lie as like the truth as consisted with success, in order that, if she were found out, it might seem she had mistaken.

Barbara noted the uncertainty of the sound her ladys.h.i.+p's trumpet gave, and began to be a.s.sured that the laws of society were no firm stepping-stones, and that society itself was a mora.s.s, where one must spend her life in jumping from hump to hump, or be swallowed up.

She had been wondering how far, if Richard proved heir to a baronetcy, his education and manners would decree him no gentleman; but it was useless to seek light from lady Ann. As they talked, however, the feeling came and grew upon her, that she was not herself acting like a lady, in going so much to her house, and being received by her as a friend, when all the time she knew something she did not know, something it was important for her to know, something she had a right and a claim to know. She would herself hate to live on what was not her own, as lady Ann would be left to do when sir Wilton died, if the truth about Richard remained undisclosed! It was very unfair to leave them unwarned for this reason besides, that so the fact might at last find them, for lack of preparation, without resource!

"I want to talk to you about something, lady Ann," she said. "You can't but know that a son of sir Wilton's was stolen when he was a baby, and never found!"

It was the first time for many years that lady Ann had heard the thing alluded to except once or twice by her husband. Her heart seemed to make a somersault, but not a visible muscle moved. What could the girl be hinting at? Were there reports about? She must let her talk!--the more freely the better!

"Every one knows that!" she answered. "It is but too true. It happened after my marriage. I was in the house at the time.--What of it, child?

There can be little hope of his turning up now--after twenty years!"

"I believe he has turned up. I believe I know him."

Lady Ann jumped to the most natural, most mistaken conclusion.

"It's the bookbinder!" she said to herself. "He has been telling her a pack of lies! His being in the house is part of the plot. It must be nipped in the bud! If it be no lie, if he be the very man, it must be nipped all the same! Good heavens! if Arthur should _not_ marry her--or someone--before it is known!"

"It may be so," she answered quietly, "but it hardly interests me. I don't like talking of such things to a girl, but innocence cannot always be spared in this wicked world. The child you speak of was born in this house, and stolen out of it; but his mother was a low woman; she was not the wife of sir Wilton."

"Everybody believed her his wife!" faltered Barbara.