Book: A Noble Life

D >> Dinah Maria Mulock Craik >> A Noble Life




"Then can not you see what I dread? The first false step--the fatal
beginning, of which no one can foresee the end? I must prevent it. I
must snatch my poor boy like a brand from the burning. I shall go to
Edinburg myself to-morrow. I would start this very day if could leave
my father."

"You can not possibly leave your father," said the ear, gently but
decisively. "Sit down, Helen. You must keep quiet."

For she was in a state of excitement such as, since her widowed days,
had never been betrayed by Helen Bruce.

"These debts must be paid, and immediately. The bare thought of them
nearly drives me wild. But you shall not pay--do not think it," she
added, almost fiercely. "See what my son himself says--and thank God
he had the grace to say it--that I am on no account to go to you;
that he 'will turn writer's clerk, or tutor, or any thing, rather than
encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth's generosity.'."

"Poor boy! poor boy!"

"Then you don't think him altogether a bad boy?" appealed Mrs. Bruce,
pitifully. "You do not fear that I may live to weep over the day when
my son was born?"

The earl smiled, and that quiet, half-amused smile, coming upon her in
her excited state, seemed to soothe the mother more than any reasoning
could have done.

"No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think the lad has been
very foolish, and we may have been the same. We kept him in
leading-strings too long, and trusted him out of them too suddenly. But
as to his being altogether bad--Helen Cardross's son, and the
minister's grandson--nonsense, my dear."

Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he stirred in his
peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took her letter from Lord
Cairnforth's hand."

"Not a word to him. He is too old. No trouble must ever come near him
any more."

"No, Helen. But remember your promise to do nothing till you have
talked with me. It is my right, you know. The boy is my boy too. When
will you come up to the Castle?" To-morrow? Nay, to-night, if you
like."

"I will come to-night."

So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in these regions
sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds very calm, mild autumn days,
Helen appeared at the Castle, and went at once into the library where
the earl usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the spacious
apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with treasures of
learning; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reaching to the very roof, which
was painted in fresco; every ornamentation of the room being also made
as perfect as its owner's fine taste and lavish means could accomplish,
and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, sitting all
alone by the vacant fireside--before him a little table, a lamp, and
a book. But he was not reading; he was sitting thinking, as he often
did now; he said he had read so much in his time that he was rather
weary of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had passed
through--still, uneventful, and yet a full and not empty human life?
Or it might be, oftener still, upon the life to come?

Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, or even sit
down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Campbell's charge, to be dried and
reclothed, for she was dripping wet with rain--such rain as come
nowhere but at Loch Beg. By-and-by she reappeared in the library,
moving through its heavy shadows, and looking herself again--the
calm, dignified woman, "my cousin, Mrs. Bruce," who sometimes appeared
among Lord Cairnforth's guests, and whom, though she was too retiring to
attract much notice, every body who did notice was sure to approve.

She took her accustomed place by the earl's side, and plunged at once,
in Helen's own way, into the business which had brought her hither.

"I am not come to beg or to borrow, do not think it--only to ask
advice. Tell me, what am I to say to my boy?"

And again, the instant she mentioned her son's name, she gave way to
tears. Yet all the while her friend saw that she was very hard, and
bent upon being hard; that, had Cardross appeared before her at that
minute, she would immediately have frozen up again into the stern mother
whose confidence had been betrayed, whose principles infringed, and who,
though loving her son with all the strength of her heart, could also
punish him with all the power of her conscience, even though her heart
was breaking with sorrow the while.

"I will give you the best advice I can. But, first, let me have his
letter again."

Lord Cairnforth read it slowly over, Mrs. Bruce's eager eyes watching
him, and then suffered her to take it from his helpless hands, and fold
it up, tenderly, as mothers do.

"What do you think of it?"

"Exactly what I did this morning--that your boy has been very
foolish, but not wicked. There is no attempt at deception or
untruthfulness.

"No, thank God! Whatever else he is, my son is not a liar. I have
prevented or conquered that."

"Yes, because you brought him up, as your father brought us up, to be
afraid of nothing, to speak out our minds to him without fear of
offending him, to stand in no dread of rousing his anger, but only of
grieving his love. And so, you see, Helen, it is the same with your
boy. He never attempts to deceive you. He tells out, point-blank, the
most foolish things he has done--the most ridiculous expenses he has
run into. He may be extravagant, but he is not untruthful. I have no
doubt, if I sent this list to his trades-people, they would verify every
halfpenny, and that this really is the end of the list. Not such a long
list neither, if you consider. Below two hundred pounds for which you
were going to sell my ring."

"Were going! I shall do it still."

"If you will; though it seems a pity to part with a gift of mine, when
the sum is a mere nothing to me, with my large income, which, Helen,
will one day be all yours."

Helen was silent--a little sorry and ashamed. The earl talked with
her till he had succeeded in calming her and bringing her into her
natural self again--able to see things in their right proportions,
and take just views of all.

"Then you will trust me?" she said at last. "You think I may be depended
upon to do nothing rashly when I go to Edinburg to-morrow?"

"My dear, I have no intention of letting you go."

"But some one must go. Something must be done, and I can not trust
Alick to do it. My brother does not understand my boy," said she,
returning to her restless, helpless manner. She, the helpful Helen,
only weak in this one point--her only son.

"Something has been done. I have already sent for Cardross. He will
be at the Castle to-morrow."

Helen started.

"At the Castle, I said, not the Manse. No, Helen, you shall not be
compromised; you may be as severe as you like with your son. But he is
my son too"--and a faint shade of color passed over the earl's
withered cheeks--"my adopted son, and it is time that he should know
it."

"Do you mean to tell him--"

"I mean to tell him all my intentions concerning him."

"What! now?"

"Yes, now. It is the safest and most direct course, both for him, for
you, and for me. I have been thinking over the matter all day, and can
come to no other conclusion. Even for myself--if I may speak of
myself--it is best. I do not wish to encroach upon his mother's
rights--it is not likely I should," added the earl, with a somewhat
sad smile; "still, it is hard that during the years, few or many, that I
have to live, I, a childless man, should not enjoy a little of the
comfort of a son."

Helen sat silent with averted face. It was all quite true, and yet--

"I will tell you, to make all clear, the position I wish Cardross to
hold with regard to me--shall I?"

Mrs. Bruce assented.

"Into his mother's place he can never step; I do not desire it. You
must still be, as you have always been, and I shall now publicly give
out the fact, my immediate successor; and, except for a stated
allowance, to be doubled when he marries, which I hope he will, and
early, Cardross must still be dependent upon his mother during her
lifetime. Afterward he inherits all. But there is one thing," he
continued, seeing that Helen did not speak, "I should like: it would
make me happy if, on his coming of age, he would change his name, or add
mine to it--be Alexander Cardross Bruce Montgomerie, or simply
Alexander Cardross Montgomerie. Which do you prefer?"

Helen meditated long. Many a change came and went over the widow's face
--widowed long enough for time to have softened down all things, and
made her remember only the young days--the days of a girl's first
love. It might have been so, for she said at last, almost with a gasp,

"I wish my son to be Bruce-Montgomerie."

"Be it so."

After that Lord Cairnforth was long silent.

Helen resumed the conversation by asking if he did not think it
dangerous, almost wrong, to tell the boy of this brilliant future
immediately after his errors?

"No, not after errors confessed and forsaken. Remember, it was over
very rags that the prodigal's father put upon him the purple robe. But
our boy is not a prodigal, Helen. I know him well, and I have faith in
him, and faith in human nature--especially Cardross nature." And the
earl smiled. "Far deeper than any harshness will smite him the
consciousness of being forgiven and trusted--of being expected to
carry out in his future life all that was a-missing in two not
particularly happy lives, his mother's--and mine."

Helen Bruce resisted no more. She could not. She was a wise woman--
a generous and loving-hearted woman; still, in that self-contained,
solitary existence, which had been spent close beside her, yet into the
mystery of which she had never penetrated, and never would penetrate,
there was a nearness to heaven and heavenly things, and clearness of
vision about earthly things which went far beyond her own. She could
not quite comprehend it--she would never have thought of it herself
--but she dimly felt that the earl's judgment was correct, and that,
strange as his conduct might appear, he was acting after that large
sense of rightness which implies righteousness; a course of action which
the world so often ridicules and misconstrues, because the point of view
is taken from an altitude not of this world, and the objects regarded
there-from are things not visible, but invisible.

Cardross appeared next day--not at home, but at the Castle, and was
closeted there for several hours with the earl before he ever saw his
mother. When he did--and it was he who came to her, for she refused
to take one step to go to him--he flung himself on his knees before
her and sobbed in her lap--the great fellow of six feet high and
twenty years old--sobbed and prayed for forgiveness with the humility
of a child.

"Oh, mother, mother--and he has forgiven me too! To think what he
has done for me--what he is about to do--me, who have had no
father, or worse than none. Do you know, sometimes people in Edinburgh
--the Menteiths, and so on--have taunted me cruelly about my
father?"

"And what do you answer?" asked Helen, in a slow, cold voice.

"That he was my father, and that he was dead; and I bade them speak no
more about him."

"That was right, my son."

Then they were silent till Cardross burst out again.

"It is wonderful--wonderful! I can hardly believe it yet--that we
should never be poor nay more--you, mother, who have gone through so
much, and I, who thought I should have to work hard all my days for both
of us. And I will work!" cried the boy, as he tossed back his curls
and lifted up to his mother a face that in brightness and energy was the
very copy of her own, or what hers used to be. "I'll show you, and the
earl too, how hard I can work--as hard as if for daily bread. I'll
do every thing he wishes me--I'll be his right hand, as he says. I
will make a name for myself and him too--mother, you know I am to
bear his name?"

"Yes, my boy."

"And I am glad to bear it. I told him so. He shall be proud of me yet,
and you too. Oh, mother, mother, I will never vex you again."

And once more his voice broke into sobs, and Helen's too, as she clasped
him close, and felt that whatever God had taken away from her, He had
given her as much--and more.

Mother and son--widowed mother and only son--there is something in
the tie unlike all others in the world--not merely in its
blessedness, but in its divine compensations.

Helen waited till her father had retired, which he often did quite
early, for the days were growing too long for him, with whom every one
of them was numbered; and he listened to the wonderful news which his
grandson told him with the even smile of old age, which nothing now
either grieves or surprises.

"You'll not be going to live at the Castle, though, not while I am
alive, Helen?" was his first uneasy thought. But his daughter soon
quieted it, and saw him to his bed, as she did every evening, bidding
him good-night, and kissing his placid brow--placid as a child's--
just as if he had been her child instead of her father. Then she took
her son's arm--such a stalwart arm now, and walked with him through
the bright moonlight, clear as day, to Cairnforth Castle.

When they entered the library they found the earl sitting in his usual
place, and engaged in his usual evening occupation, which he sometimes
called "the hard labor of doing nothing;" for, though he was busy enough
in the daytime with a young man he had as secretary--his faithful old
friend, Mr. Mearns, having lately died--still, he generally spent his
evenings alone. Malcolm lurked within call, in case he wanted any
thing; but he rarely did. Often he would pass hours at a time sitting
as now, with his feeble hands folded on his lap, his head bent, and his
eyes closed, or else open and looking out straight before him--
calmly, but with an infinite yearning in them that would have seemed
painful to those who did not know how peaceful his inmost nature was.

But at the first sound of his visitors' footsteps he turned round--
that is, he turned his little chair round--and welcomed them heartily
and brightly.

A little ordinary talk ensued, in which Cardross scarcely joined. The
young man was not himself at all--silent, abstracted; and there was
an expression in his face which almost frightened his mother, so solemn
was it, yet withal so exceedingly sweet.

The earl had been right in his conclusions; he, with his keen insight
into character, had judged Cardross better than the boy's own mother
would have done. Those brilliant prospects, that total change in his
expected future, which might have dazzled a lower nature and sent it all
astray, made this boy--Helen's boy, with Helen's nature strong in
him, only the more sensible of his deficiencies as well as his
responsibilities--humble, self-distrustful, and full of doubts and
fears. Ten years seemed to have passed over his head since morning,
changing him from a boy into a sedate, thoughtful man.

Lord Cairnforth noticed this, as he noticed every thing; and at last,
seeing the young heart was too full almost to bear much talking, he said
kindly,

"Cardross, give your mother that arm-chair; she looks very wearied. And
the, would you mind having a consultation with Malcolm about those
salmon-weirs at the head of the Loch Mohr? I know his is longing to
open his heart to you on the subject. Go, my boy, and don't hurry back.
I want to have a good long talk with your mother."

Cardross obeyed. The two friends looked after him as he walked down the
room with his light, active step, and graceful, gentlemanly figure--a
youth who seemed born to be heir to all the splendors around him. Helen
clasped her hands tightly together on her lap, and her lips moved. She
did not speak, but the earl almost seemed to hear the great outcry of
the mother's heart going up to God--"Give any thing thou wilt to me,
only give him all!" Alas! That such a cry should ever fall back to
earth in the other pitiful moan, "Would God that I had died for thee, O
Abaslom, my son--my son!"

But it was not to be so with Helen Bruce. Her son was no Absalom. Her
days of sorrow were ended.

Laird Cairnforth saw how violently affected she was, and began to talk
to her in a commonplace and practical manner about all that he and
Cardross had been arranging that morning.

"And I must say that, though he will never shine at college, and
probably his grandfather would mourn over him as having no learning,
there is an amount of solid sense about the fellow with which I am quite
delighted. He is companionable too--knows how to make use of his
acquirements. Whatever light he possesses, he will never hide it under
a bushel, which is, perhaps, the best qualification for the position
that he will one day hold. I have no fear about Cardross. He will be
an heir after my own heart--will accomplish all I wished, and
possibly a little more."

Mrs. Bruce answered only by tears.

"But there is one thing which he and I have settled between us, subject
to your approval, of course. He must go back to college immediately."

"To Edinburg?"

"Do not look so alarmed, Helen. No, not Edinburg. It is best to break
off all associations there--he wishes it himself. He would like to
go to a new University--St. Andrew's."

"But he knows nobody there. He would be quite alone. For I can not--
do you not see I can not?--leave my father. Oh, it is like being
pulled in two," cried Mrs. Bruce, in great distress.

"Be patient, Helen, and hear. We have arranged it all, the boy and I.
Next week we are both bound for St. Andrew's."

"You?"

"You think I shall be useless? That it is a man, and not such a
creature as I, who ought to take charge of your boy?"

The earl spoke with that deep bitterness which sometimes, though very,
very rarely, he betrayed, till he saw what exceeding pain he had given.

"Forgive me, Helen; I know you did not mean that; but it was what I
myself often thought until this morning. Now I see that after all I--
even I--may be the very best person to go with the boy, because,
while keeping a safe watch over him, and a cheerful house always open to
him, I shall also give him somebody to take care of. I shall be as much
charge to him almost as a woman, and it will be good for him. Do you
not perceive this?"

Helen did, clearly enough.

"Besides," continued the earl, "I might, perhaps, like to see the world
myself--just once again. At any rate, I shall like to see it through
this young man's eyes. He has not told you of our plan yet?"

"Not a word."

"That is well. I like to see he can keep faith. I made him promise
not, because I wanted to tell you myself, Helen--I wanted to see how
you would take the plan. Will you let us go? That is, the boy must go,
and--you will do without me for a year?"

"A whole year! Can not Cardross come home once--just once?"

"Yes, I will manage it so; he shall come, even if I can not," replied
the earl, and then was silent.

"And you," said Mrs. Bruce, suddenly, after a long meditation upon her
son and his future, "you leave, for a year, your home, your pleasant
life here; you change all your pursuits and plans, and give yourself no
end of trouble, just to go and watch over my boy, and keep his mother's
heart from aching! How can I ever thank you--ever reward you?"

No, she never could.

"It is an ugly word, 'reward;' I don't like it. And, Helen, I thought
thanks were long since set aside as unnecessary between you and me."

"And you will be absent a whole year?"

"Probably, or a little more; for the boy ought to keep two sessions at
least; and locomotion is not so easy to me as it is to Cardross. Yes,
my dear, you will have to part with me--I mean I shall have to part
with you--for a year. It is a long time in our short lives. I would
not do it--give myself the pain of it--for any thing in this world
except to make Helen happy."

"Thank you; I know that."

But Helen, full of her son and his prospects--her youth renewed in
his youth, her life absorbed in his, seeming to stretch out to a future
where there was no ending, knew not half of what she thanked him for.

She yielded to all the earl's plans; and after so many years of
resistance, bowed her independent spirit to accept his bounty with
humility of gratitude that was almost painful to both, until a few words
of his led her to, and left her in the belief that he was doing what was
agreeable to himself--that he really did enjoy the idea of a long
sojourn at St. Andrew's; and, mother-like, when she was satisfied on
this head, she began almost to envy him the blessing of her boy's
constant society.

So she agreed to all his plans cheerfully, contentedly, as indeed she
had good reason to be contented; thankfully accepted every thing, and
never for a moment suspected that she was accepting a sacrifice.





Chapter 17

During a whole year the Earl of Cairnforth and Mr. Bruce-Montgomery--
for, as soon as possible, Cardross legally assumed the name--resided
at that fairest of ancient cities and pleasantest of Scotch
Universities, St. Andrew's.

A few of the older inhabitants may still remember the house the earl
occupied there, the society with which he filled it, and the general
mode of life carried on by himself and his adopted son. Some may recall
--for indeed it was not easy to forget--the impression made in the
good old town by the two new-comers when they first appeared in the
quiet streets, along the Links and on the West Sands--every where
that the little carriage could be drawn. A strange contrast they were
--the small figure in the pony-chair, and the tall young man walking
beside it in all the vigor, grace, and activity of his blooming youth.
Two companions pathetically unlike, and yet always seen together, and
evidently associating with one another from pure love.

They lived for some time in considerable seclusion, for the earl's rank
and wealth at first acted as a bar to much seeking of his acquaintance
among the proud and poor University professors and old-fashioned
inhabitants of the city; and Cardross, being the senior of most of the
college lads, did not cultivate them much. By degrees, however, he
became well known--not as a hard student--that was not his line
--he never took any high college honors; but he was the best golfer,
the most dashing rider, the boldest swimmer--he saved more than one
life on that dangerous shore; and, before the session was half over, he
was the most popular youth in the whole University. But he would leave
every thing, or give up every thing--both his studies and his
pleasures--to sit, patient as a girl, beside the earl's chair, or to
follow it--often guiding it himself--up and down St. Andrews'
streets; never heeding who looked at him, or what comments were made--
as they were sure to be made--upon him, until what was at first so
strange and touching a sight grew at last familiar to the whole town.

Of course, very soon all the circumstances of the case came out,
probably with many imaginary additions, though the latter never reached
the ears of the two concerned. Still, the tale was romantic and
pathetic enough to make the earl and his young heir objects of marked
interest, and welcome guests in the friendly hospitalities of the place,
which hospitalities were gladly requited, for Lord Cairnforth still
keenly enjoyed society, and Cardross was at an age when all pleasure is
attractive.

People said sometimes, What a lucky fellow was Mr. Bruce-Montgomerie!
But they also said--as no one could help seeing and saying--that
very few fathers were blessed with a son half so attentive and devoted
as this young man was to the Earl of Cairnforth.

And meantime Helen Bruce lived quietly at the Manse, devoting herself to
the care of her father, who still lingered on, feeble in body, though
retaining most of his faculties, as though death were unwilling to end a
life which had so much of peace and enjoyment of it to the very last.
When the session was over, Cardross went home to see his mother and
grandfather, and on his return Lord Cairnforth listened eagerly to all
the accounts of Cairnforth, and especially of all that Mrs. Bruce was
doing there; she, as the person most closely acquainted with the earl's
affairs, having been constituted regent in his absence.

"She's a wonderful woman--my mother," said Cardross, with great
admiration. "She has the sense of a man, and the tact of a woman. She
is doing every thing about the estate almost as cleverly as you would do
it yourself."

"Is she? It is good practice for her," said the earl. "She will need
it soon."

Cardross looked at him. He had never till then noticed, what other
people began to notice, how exceedingly old the earl now looked, his
small, delicate features withering up almost like those of an elderly
man, though he was not much past forty.

"You don't, mean--oh no, not that! You must not be thinking of that.
My mother's rule at Cairnforth is a long way off yet." And--big
fellow as he was--the lad's eyes filled with tears.

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