The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 21

“Esther,” said the aunt, “see and make Mr. Naseby his tea.”

As soon as the girl was gone upon this hospitable intent, the old woman crossed the room and came quite near to Dick as if in menace.

“Ye know that man?” she asked, in an imperious whisper.

“Mr. Van Tromp?” said Dick. “Yes; I know him.”

“Well, and what brings ye here?” she said. “I couldn’t save the mother – her that’s dead – but the bairn!” She had a note in her voice that filled poor Dick with consternation. “Man,” she went on, “what is it now? Is it money?”

“My dear lady,” said Dick, “I think you misinterpret my position. I am young Mr. Naseby of Naseby House. My acquaintance with Mr. Van Tromp is really very slender; I am only afraid that Miss Van Tromp has exaggerated our intimacy in her own imagination. I know positively nothing of his private affairs, and do not care to know. I met him casually in Paris – that is all.”

Miss M’Glashan drew a long breath. “In Paris?” she said. “Well, and what do you think of him? – what do ye think of him?” she repeated, with a different scansion, as Richard, who had not much taste for such a question, kept her waiting for an answer.

“I found him a very agreeable companion,” he said.

“Ay,” said she, “did ye! And how does he win his bread?”

“I fancy,” he gasped, “that Mr. Van Tromp has many generous friends.”

“I’ll warrant!” she sneered; and before Dick could find more to say, she was gone from the room.

Esther returned with the tea-things, and sat down.

“Now,” she said cosily, “tell me all about my father.”

“He” – stammered Dick, “he is a very agreeable companion.”

“I shall begin to think it is more than you are, Mr. Naseby,” she said, with a laugh. “I am his daughter, you forget. Begin at the beginning, and tell me all you have seen of him, all he said and all you answered. You must have met somewhere; begin with that.”

So with that he began: how he had found the Admiral painting in a café; how his art so possessed him that he could not wait till he got home to – well, to dash off his idea; how (this in reply to a question) his idea consisted of a cock crowing and two hens eating corn; how he was fond of cocks and hens; how this did not lead him to neglect more ambitious forms of art; how he had a picture in his studio of a Greek subject which was said to be remarkable from several points of view; how no one had seen it nor knew the precise site of the studio in which it was being vigorously though secretly confected; how (in answer to a suggestion) this shyness was common to the Admiral, Michelangelo, and others; how they (Dick and Van Tromp) had struck up an acquaintance at once, and dined together that same night; how he (the Admiral) had once given money to a beggar; how he spoke with effusion of his little daughter; how he had once borrowed money to send her a doll – a trait worthy of Newton, she being then in her nineteenth year at least; how, if the doll never arrived (which it appeared it never did), the trait was only more characteristic of the highest order of creative intellect; how he was – no, not beautiful – striking, yes, Dick would go so far, decidedly striking in appearance; how his boots were made to lace and his coat was black, not cut-away, a frock; and so on, and so on by the yard. It was astonishing how few lies were necessary. After all, people exaggerated the difficulty of life. A little steering, just a touch of the rudder now and then, and with a willing listener there is no limit to the domain of equivocal speech. Sometimes Miss M’Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the parlour; and then the task seemed unaccountably more difficult; but to Esther, who was all eyes and ears, her face alight with interest, his stream of language flowed without break or stumble, and his mind was ever fertile in ingenious evasions and —

What an afternoon it was for Esther!

“Ah!” she said at last, “it’s good to hear all this! My aunt, you should know, is narrow and too religious; she cannot understand an artist’s life. It does not frighten me,” she added grandly; “I am an artist’s daughter.”

With that speech, Dick consoled himself for his imposture; she was not deceived so grossly after all; and then if a fraud, was not the fraud piety itself? – and what could be more obligatory than to keep alive in the heart of a daughter that filial trust and honour which, even although misplaced, became her like a jewel of the mind? There might be another thought, a shade of cowardice, a selfish desire to please; poor Dick was merely human; and what would you have had him do?

CHAPTER IV

ESTHER ON THE FILIAL RELATION

A month later Dick and Esther met at the stile beside the cross roads; had there been any one to see them but the birds and summer insects, it would have been remarked that they met after a different fashion from the day before. Dick took her in his arms, and their lips were set together for a long while. Then he held her at arm’s length, and they looked straight into each other’s eyes.

“Esther!” he said, – you should have heard his voice!

“Dick!” said she.

“My darling!”

It was some time before they started for their walk; he kept an arm about her, and their sides were close together as they walked; the sun, the birds, the west wind running among the trees, a pressure, a look, the grasp tightening round a single finger, these things stood them in lieu of thought and filled their hearts with joy. The path they were following led them through a wood of pine trees carpeted with heather and blueberry, and upon this pleasant carpet, Dick, not without some seriousness, made her sit down.

“Esther!” he began, “there is something you ought to know. You know my father is a rich man, and you would think, now that we love each other, we might marry when we pleased. But I fear, darling, we may have long to wait, and shall want all our courage.”

“I have courage for anything,” she said, “I have all I want; with you and my father, I am so well off, and waiting is made so happy, that I could wait a lifetime and not weary.”

He had a sharp pang at the mention of the Admiral. “Hear me out,” he continued. “I ought to have told you this before; but it is a thought I shrink from; if it were possible, I should not tell you even now. My poor father and I are scarce on speaking terms.”

“Your father,” she repeated, turning pale.

“It must sound strange to you; but yet I cannot think I am to blame,” he said. “I will tell you how it happened.”

“O Dick!” she said, when she had heard him to an end, “how brave you are, and how proud! Yet I would not be proud with a father. I would tell him all.”

“What!” cried Dick, “go in months after, and brag that I meant to thrash the man, and then didn’t? And why? Because my father had made a bigger ass of himself than I supposed. My dear, that’s nonsense.”

She winced at his words and drew away. “But then that is all he asks,” she pleaded. “If he only knew that you had felt that impulse, it would make him so proud and happy. He would see you were his own son after all, and had the same thoughts and the same chivalry of spirit. And then you did yourself injustice when you spoke just now. It was because the editor was weak and poor and excused himself, that you repented your first determination. Had he been a big red man, with whiskers, you would have beaten him – you know you would – if Mr. Naseby had been ten times more committed. Do you think, if you can tell it to me, and I understand at once, that it would be more difficult to tell it to your own father, or that he would not be more ready to sympathise with you than I am? And I love you, Dick; but then he is your father.”

“My dear,” said Dick desperately, “you do not understand; you do not know what it is to be treated with daily want of comprehension and daily small injustices, through childhood and boyhood and manhood, until you despair of a hearing, until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until you almost hate the sight of the man you love, and who’s your father after all. In short, Esther, you don’t know what it is to have a father, and that’s what blinds you.”

“I see,” she said musingly, “you mean that I am fortunate in my father. But I am not so fortunate, after all; you forget, I do not know him; it is you who know him; he is already more your father than mine.” And here she took his hand. Dick’s heart had grown as cold as ice. “But I am sorry for you, too,” she continued, “it must be very sad and lonely.”

“You misunderstand me,” said Dick chokingly. “My father is the best man I know in all this world; he is worth a hundred of me, only he doesn’t understand me, and he can’t be made to.”

There was a silence for a while. “Dick,” she began again, “I am going to ask a favour, it’s the first since you said you loved me. May I see your father – see him pass, I mean, where he will not observe me?”

“Why?” asked Dick.

“It is a fancy; you forget, I am romantic about fathers.”

The hint was enough for Dick; he consented with haste, and full of hang-dog penitence and disgust, took her down by a back way and planted her in the shrubbery, whence she might see the Squire ride by to dinner. There they both sat silent, but holding hands, for nearly half an hour. At last the trotting of a horse sounded in the distance, the park gates opened with a clang, and then Mr. Naseby appeared, with stooping shoulders and a heavy, bilious countenance, languidly rising to the trot. Esther recognised him at once; she had often seen him before, though with her huge indifference for all that lay outside the circle of her love, she had never so much as wondered who he was; but now she recognised him, and found him ten years older, leaden and springless, and stamped by an abiding sorrow.

“O Dick, Dick!” she said, and the tears began to shine upon her face as she hid it in his bosom; his own fell thickly too. They had a sad walk home, and that night, full of love and good counsel, Dick exerted every art to please his father, to convince him of his respect and affection, to heal up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But alas! the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day glooming over Dick’s estrangement – for so he put it to himself, and now with growls, cold words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off all advances, and entrenched himself in a just resentment.

CHAPTER V

THE PRODIGAL FATHER MAKES HIS DÉBUT AT HOME

That took place upon a Thursday. On the Thursday following, as Dick was walking by appointment, earlier than usual, in the direction of the cottage, he was appalled to meet in the lane a fly from Thymebury, containing the human form of Miss M’Glashan. The lady did not deign to remark him in her passage; her face was suffused with tears, and expressed much concern for the packages by which she was surrounded. He stood still, and asked himself what this circumstance might portend. It was so beautiful a day that he was loth to forecast evil, yet something must perforce have happened at the cottage, and that of a decisive nature; for here was Miss M’Glashan on her travels, with a small patrimony in brown paper parcels, and the old lady’s bearing implied hot battle and unqualified defeat. Was the house to be closed against him? Was Esther left alone, or had some new protector made his appearance from among the millions of Europe? It is the character of love to loathe the near relatives of the loved one; chapters in the history of the human race have justified this feeling, and the conduct of uncles, in particular, has frequently met with censure from the independent novelist. Miss M’Glashan was now seen in the rosy colours of regret; whoever succeeded her, Dick felt the change would be for the worse. He hurried forward in this spirit; his anxiety grew upon him with every step; as he entered the garden a voice fell upon his ear, and he was once more arrested, not this time by doubt, but by an indubitable certainty of ill.

The thunderbolt had fallen; the Admiral was here.

Dick would have retreated, in the panic terror of the moment; but Esther kept a bright look-out when her lover was expected. In a twinkling she was by his side, brimful of news and pleasure, too glad to notice his embarrassment, and in one of those golden transports of exultation which transcend not only words but caresses. She took him by the end of the fingers (reaching forward to take them, for her great preoccupation was to save time), she drew him towards her, pushed him past her in the door, and planted him face to face with Mr. Van Tromp, in a suit of French country velveteens and with a remarkable carbuncle on his nose. Then, as though this was the end of what she could endure in the way of joy, Esther turned and ran out of the room.

The two men remained looking at each other with some confusion on both sides. Van Tromp was naturally the first to recover; he put out his hand with a fine gesture.

“And you know my little lass, my Esther?” he said. “This is pleasant, this is what I have conceived of home. A strange word for the old rover; but we all have a taste for home and the homelike, disguise it how we may. It has brought me here, Mr. Naseby,” he concluded, with an intonation that would have made his fortune on the stage, so just, so sad, so dignified, so like a man of the world and a philosopher, “and you see a man who is content.”

“I see,” said Dick.