Faults on Both Sides

Chapter I. The Sick Chamber

Mr. Fenton entered the room before Miss Harcourt. Was it that he had discovered that her arrival might be a source of agitation ? He was a reflective man, and wore spectacles. Now it cannot be asserted that those short-sighted persons who wear spectacles see farther than other people ; but they have an excuse for a good stare under VOL. II. B the covert of those sage-looking glasses which form a sort of eye-ambush. A gaze through spectacles has not, however, the awful pro perties of a fixed glance from the stern and naked orb ; " it fires not, wins not ;" and there is a certain benevolence in spectacles, which disarms those against whom they are directed. Mr. Fenton said quietly, " So here is Miss Harcourt, whom you have been wishing to see, Mr. Powys ;" but, from within the circle of a massive silver rim, he remarked that the colour had mounted up to the young man's face, forming a bright speck on his clear and delicate cheek.

" Shall we not be too many in the room ?" resumed the Rector. " Josiah, suppose you and I go downstairs ?" " He'll want me, uncle ; he can't bear me a moment out of his sight, sir," replied Josiah. " Well then, Beata, let Beata come ; — come, my dear, let us go downstairs ;" — and the Rector, casting a last look at Ewen, closed the door. He saw in that glance that Cecile Harcourt was seated by the invalid ; and had taken his hand in hers : that her face was turned towards him, and the touching accents of her voice had their tenderest tones for him. The words " poor fellow !" broke from the good Rector's lips. "What!" said Beata; "do you think, uncle, there is danger ?" " Yes — there is danger; but not from the wound," the Rector muttered to himself. "There would be danger," he resumed, after they had passed through the hall ; and when they were standing on the well-whitened step amid a bower of clematis over the porch, — " there will be danger if he is of a consumptive family ; but who knows any b thing about this poor boy, or his relations ?"

" Who, indeed !" said Beata, mournfully. The Rector stood in thought. His eyes were directed to the churchyard, where, en circled with a garniture of fuchsias and roses, planted by some pious care, a grave appeared. It was that of a lady, who had not very long since died in that neighbourhood, and in whose slow but sure decline the Rector had taken a great interest. Beata caught the glance. The Rector had taken off his spectacles, and the gaze of his mild, thoughtful and still beautiful eyes, shaded as they were by the darkest of eyelashes and eyebrows, attracted her notice. Her colour changed. " But he was so strong ?" she said, rather quickly, as if answering her uncle's thoughts. " Yes — it was an accident, certainly, that is in his favour," Mr. Fenton answered. " My dear, on second thoughts, suppose you go upstairs, and send Josiah down.

Miss Harcourt may not like to be left alone with those young men." Beata ran into the house. She was soon again in Ewen's room, beckoning at the door for Josiah to come out ; but Josiah, by sun dry gestures, intimated that he could not be spared. He was sitting, Beata saw, point blank, opposite Ewen, his deep-set eyes fixed upon his face. Little had passed except the most ordinary inquiries and remarks. " Come, Josiah," whispered Beata. " I can't — she — " Josiah turned his lanky hand in the direction of Cecile — " she asked me to stay." " Yes, indeed I did, Beata. I fear I have taken up a great deal of your brother's time, and I must not tire the invalid," Cecile said. " But I am not tired — I am quite strong," said Ewen, sitting up, and shewing his thin, spare figure, and proving that his words were untrue. • " You cannot tire me."

" I dare say Miss Harcourt's precious hard up for time, just now," said Josiah, who had kept watch, as it were, over the interesting interview ; " or would you like to be left alone with him ?" he added. " Oh, no — no !" Cecile rose, as she spoke. Not a reference, either by word or look had been made to the occasion of several weeks of suffering and even of danger. Not a syllable of the ferocious attack of the stran ger. But she had fixed those pensive speaking eyes with tender interest on the face of the champion. She had held his hand in hers — and Ewen was unspeakably happy. " There is Beata, telling me that I have been here too long," she resumed. " Only one quarter of an hour after all ; but I shall come again soon." " And yet it is selfish in me ; — there is so much always to be done at New Court," said Ewen, looking at her earnestly.

" We have young Mr. Fenton, you know, and you will be glad to hear that Mr. St. Aubyn and he get on well together," said Cecile. " Glad !" the rword struck a pang. — "Glad!" " Yes — he is stronger ; he can be far more useful than I am," said the invalid, with a bitter smile — (" and for whom," he thought, "ami laid low ?") Miss Harcourt was leaving the room, but she turned hastily back to assure the invalid that he was missed every hour of the day. He had sunk on the sofa ; she knelt by it, and that most symmetrical of faces beamed with the kindest expressions, as she bade him be sure that no one could ever supply his place. "I say it without disparagement to Mr. Fenton." " Just so," interposed Josiah ; " I'm new to the situation, you know. Then, I'm not a fine gentleman, too, like our friend Ewen."

"And then, Mr. St. Aubyn really loves you," added Cecile, pressing Ewen's hand, and rising as she spoke. " Farewell, till to morrow. I shall see you every day till — till you are stronger and less morbid." " That's where it is !" said Josiah. " I never knew a morbid feeling in my life." " I dare say not. Now, Mr. Powys, I shall tell Mr. St. Aubyn that you are going to sleep; so he must not call to-day. Good bye — remember all I say to you." " Remember !" If to recall every syllable, to dwell on every look ; to cherish the fondest, the most hopeless, the saddest, the plea santest ! but let us not reveal the secrets of that "brooding heart," — they will, by some, be fully comprehended. — The door closed, and Ewen lay long with his eyes shut, too happy to sleep, too languid to rise. Josiah, repulsed by Miss Harcourt, still kept a pertinacious guard over his bed side, with the air of a watch-dog, rather than of a friend ; as if prepared to bark, if not bite, to be snappish, at all events, to any one who approached his charge.

Poor Ewen felt as if in jeopardy — though supposed only to be under tender care. A long silence ensued ; it was broken by Josiah's saying — "You're wrong to put yourself in such a heat, though, when people come to see you. That blood-vessel might give way again at any moment." " Blood-vessel ! What do you mean ? I have not broken a blood-vessel ; you must be thinking of some one else," said Ewen, resentfully. "Hum — they've kept him in the dark — what a shame ! Well, how was it, old boy ? Some say you were running too fast ; others, that you tripped up and fell. The whole village is wondering about you." " Let them wonder." "There have been some bad characters hereabouts, especially one fellow that annoys us — I mean Mr. St. Aubyn and our people, with a claim on New Court. Have you chanced to meet that scoundrel here abouts ?"

" No, I have not, to my knowledge," said Ewen, turning very pale. " He's a man about my height," resumed Josiah, drawing himself up, " only not so well set as I am — not all muscle, like me." He protruded, as he spoke, a broad, square chest, top heavy for his short, spare legs. " That's the figure for strength, ain't it ? This fellow's slender and weak, like you." " I am not weak," cried Ewen, ready to knock him down; "strong enough, at all events, to silence impertinence." " Don't be excited — what's the use of that ? Well, this fellow has, since you were ill, been setting up claims to property here. He barricaded himself in an empty farm house, and they were obliged to eject him by force." " Upon what ground does he come ? " Ewen gasped out. " Now do be cool, and I'll tell you. You know the old sinner who once owned Old Court, had two families, one the right, the other the wrong.

The wrong heir, when he comes to know how matters stood, says ' give me every penny I have in the world, and I'll be off,' and off he was." " Yes, yes !" " Egad, what's that to you, that you should blow and breathe ? — Well, this base born gentleman chose, in his turn, to have a family, who were all right enough, — they )3 were. " They were !" exclaimed Ewen, fer vently ; " if ever there was honour in man, or virtue in woman, they were !" " Bless me ! what a climax ! Have you been on the stage ? Well, now the eldest son of him that was no son at all, comes back to claim our place and all our people's lands. Do you see ?" " Good God ! But he died," cried Ewen, in great agitation. " No, he didn't ; he could't be drowned, for he's born to be hanged • so he has lived on to annoy and frighten Mr. St. Aubyn and Sissy.

I can't help calling her Sissy, it is such a pretty name." " I beg of you to remember, Josiah," replied Ewen hurriedly, " that you and I are dependants, but that is nothing to the purpose. What you have told me explains much — explains all. Now let me sleep ; I cannot speak one word more. Pray leave 55 me. "Now I won't leave you; my instruc tions were to stop here." And Josiah planted himself as if he were a keeper, not a friend, by Ewen's bed. He had many habits unfavourable to the repose and comfort of any one who happened to be in company with him, even if those unfortunates were in the best of health. He had a way of scraping his feet on the floor ; and when he seated himself, it seemed to require ten minutes at least to fix him easily in his chair ; and he had a sort of chronic snore, or grunt, that used to drive weak-spirited people almost to frenzy.

Yet Ewen seemed to sleep ; he turned away ; he avoided the cavernous luminaries which shone out of dark hollows from Josiah's face. He still felt that those bead-like, unflinching orbs were ever upon him. With a desperate hand he drew the bed-curtain. " You were ordered to have air,3' said Josiah, drawing it back. " You forget that I am perfectly well now," replied Ewen, in a state of irritation. " Are you ? — Glad to hear it, for you don't look so." " — And I am going to sleep," cried Ewen, in a voice of fury. " So it seems — do." This was almost their last skirmish that evening. Ewen tried to think, and fell asleep. His spirits were tranquillised ; he had begun to imagine that there must be some strange mysterious influence over Cecile, some se cret, perhaps unholy bond. Now it was explained ; the fears, the avoidance, the in terviews between her and her stepfather ; the sudden departure from London, all were accounted for.

Again, one whom he had long supposed to be dead, had come forth from obscurity, to stand between him and those whom he had learned to love in spite of long-formed prejudices. Whence had he come ? Worthless, heartless, degraded. Where had he buried his faults and his destitution, after breaking a mother's heart, for years ? The question involved the feeble thinker in a maze. Years past were as if present ; memories quite obliterated were challenged ; resentments were calmed that Reason might play her part. And yet the nervous ex citability of the invalid was soothed. " Let him take all," he muttered to him self, " so that he does but leave me — " the name hovered on his lips. "Are you going to sleep, old fellow?" cried Josiah, " or will you have your tea ?" Ewen was still as death in a moment.

" He's sound asleep," said Josiah to him self; " that's keeping him quiet, the very thing for him. I knew it would do him good, poor fellow ! 'twas a good thing I didn't leave him." He looked compassionately, — with a sort of conceited compassion, — at the invalid. What an adulteration of all the higher qua lities of the mind is vulgarity ! In education, one of the first aims should be to refine every thought, every habit, every expression. Undoubtedly, the great refiner is religion ; and hence it is that our clergy, where a real piety exists, even when raised from the most obscure condition, are so refined in contrast with other men of similar original position. All education must have, more or less, the same influence ; but religion, with its ele vating, its softening, its poetic sway over the mind, is the great purifier, not only of cha racter, but also of manners.

Never was this fact more completely exem plified than in the character and bearing of Mr. Fenton. His origin — but what matters the origin of a man so lettered, so good, such VOL. II. c a gentleman in every sense? — his origin, how ever, (to be exact,) resembled that of many a man who has entered an honourable and high career through the portals of an En glish university. Some say his father was a grocer, others a linendraper ; accounts vary*, which proves that he retained so little of the original shop, whatever it was, that no defi nite biography could be made out, even by the gossips, who always centre round a clergyman. And even in personal attributes, the humanizing effects of severe study, of long habits of due observances, above all, of the unworldly thoughts and feelings of a man whose heart was not wholly here, were manifest.

As Josiah, tired out at last, had arisen, and stood before the window, his hands in his pockets, his uncle opened the door, and walked softly up to the bed-side. The word " hush !" hovered on his lips as Josiah, in his thick shoes, turned round, and the sleeper awoke. " We must be careful how we awaken him suddenly, Josiah," said the Rector in a whisper : as he bent his head down, near to that of his nephew, the difference, as well as the likeness between them might be ob served; features — family features, marked the likeness, but somehow that which was so pert in Josiah, was elegant in the Rector. The hawk nose, full of conceit, in the one, was aquiline in the other; the cavernous eyes in the nephew's face were deep-set, yet soft and thoughtful in the other ; in the ex pression ofthe mouth, however, the character of the man might be most clearly defined.

The Rector's smile, rare as it was, was beautiful. " I will take your place here, Josiah," he c said, and he sat down on a corner of the bedstead. The calm brow, on which locks just tinged with grey were decently ar ranged ; the graceful figure, the clerical dress, so becoming in middle age, the some what anxious glance, the soft and measured words, the beautiful articulation of our beautiful English, composed the spirits of Ewen. He felt that a benignant friend was present ; he was the first to speak. "I am a great trouble to you, sir, but I hope to be able to return soon to New Court." " Yes," the w*ord was uttered so re luctantly, that it might just as well have been " no." "What are your plans after — after Mr. St. Aubyn has ceased to require a secretary ?" Mr. Fenton inquired. " Plans ?— Is there any chance of that ?' Ewen's face flushed as he spoke.

" No — no — do not agitate yourself." The Rector seemed to recollect himself — he was addressing an invalid, he changed the sub ject therefore, immediately. " Has Josiah told you of the strange in cident which has occurred here lately ? — A claimant to the New Court property ? — A son of Mr. St. Aubyn's elder brother, it seems — so he states, but, in fact, nothing is actually known, and Mr. St. Aubyn is per fectly silent on the subject." The Rector stopped short, he was struck by the pale ness of Ewen's face contrasted with his previous colour. " Perhaps you know something of this man ?" Mr. Fenton resumed. "Yes," Ewen answered, "I fancy it was he who insulted Miss Harcourt : we had an encounter, he struck me down, and I believe," he added in strong emotion, " he would wilsingly have killed me ; this much, sir, I can state on my own knowledge, that he is not the eldest son of Mr. St. Aubyn's late brother !

I cannot tell you whence my information is derived. It is, however, very satisfactory — " " Then his claim is at an end ; but he states that he is "not the eldest son, but that the eldest son is dead — is that true?" Mr. Fenton, astonished, replied. " No — the eldest son, to my knowledge, is alive, Mr. Fenton ; you may tell Mr. St. Aubyn that, but do not say from whom your authority comes ; he may set that — that pretender at defiance — I am ill — do not ask me more." " Certainly not. I must try to control my curiosity : — pray rest now, I shall send Josiah to you." " Oh no." "'Not with Beata to read to you ?" " Well— thank you." "Good-night! why, my dear Mr. Powys, what a warm hand and galloping pulse you have — you have had one visitor too many to-day, now don't attempt to blind me, although I am an old bachelor : good-night."

He wrent down stairs. Some time after wards, Ewen heard the front gate bang to. Mr. Fenton was gone out : contrary to his usual practice of always staying at home in the evening, he walked up to New Court. The Rector's mind was troubled, but w*as more hopeful than it had been in the morning. Mr. St. Aubyn, to whom he was sincerely attached, had been in evident anxiety about this claim to his long-enjoyed estate. He had made stringent efforts as far as he properly could, to get the claimant out of the country ; he had threatened him with au action for a trespass — he had driven him ignominiously from the premises, still the pretender had returned, and was always hovering about, insulting Mr. St. Aubyn, and even pursuing Miss Harcourt, who had nothing to do with the matter, as it was remarked.

" But had she nothing to do with it ?" the Rector asked himself the question ; per haps the claimant was also a discarded lover — he was always tracking her steps — vulgar report assigned to him an agile and handsome person ; he was growing popular in the district. Nothing inflames the mind of the peasantry so soon as a question of might over right ; nothing is so rea dily taken up as a claim against existing dynasties, whether set up against a Louis Philippe, in the person of a surreptitious Duke of Normandy, or on less illustrious grounds. The villagers, who were under personal obligations to the present St. Aubyn family, talked much, but did not act ; but there are always detached individuals ready for a tur moil — easy to be bought, or cajoled into a marauding party — strong country lads, ripe for recruits, or eager to become rioters or poachers — the young blood of Old England — the characters who would have followed Wat Tyler, or made a brawl in favour of Perkin Warbeck in olden times.

These troublesome spirits are not yet extinct in England, and I am. glad they are not — they form fine materials for bands of heroes, when well humbled on the one hand by discipline, and encouraged on the other by esprit de corps to the work that their country has for them to perform.

Chapter II. Trouble Upon Trouble

Mr. Fenton was greeted by the servant at the hall door, with — " Mr. Egerton is come home, sir ; arrived an hour ago." " Very well — I am glad of it. He was sent for, I suppose ? Stopped before he had left Paris," he thought, " on account of these attacks on the property." He went up into the drawing-room. Mrs. St. Aubyn and Cecile were there. Tea was on the table, but the urn was fizzing loudly, disregarded. Cecile was on a low stool looking at the fire, and Mrs. St. Aubyn splendidly dressed, was doing nothing. She rose, shivering, to receive him. "It is terribly cold in this room; don't you feel it so as you come in ? We sit in it, you know, because my — my nephew" — she was going to say ; " Egerton," she did say — " is come home unexpectedly, for a few days." The little incident was not lost on Mr. Fenton.

He read men as well as books ; and though he had but recently read women, he was be coming conversant in that sort of delicate and difficult literature too. "Yes — the servant told me; and he is well, I hear?" " Yes, only his hair is so long, like a foreigner's *. he has a cold too, and never takes any care of his colds. Is Mr. Powys's cough better ?" The Rector hesitated for an instant. " He coughs at nights," was his curt reply. " Dear me ! I wish he could come back again, for I was just getting on so well with chess." " I am afraid he will not be back for some time, if ever." " Then it is very fortunate for St. Aubyn," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, " that your nephew is here, Mr. Fenton." But Cecile turned quickly round. The greatest distress was depicted in her countenance ; but she said nothing.

At this moment the door opened, and Mr. St. Aubyn walked in, followed by his nephew. Mr. Fenton had not seen Egerton for some time, and he was struck by the change in his appearance. Five or six years of age, and ten of seriousness and thought, seemed to be added to his previous standing. In stature, in feature, in deportment, Egerton was a noble specimen of the true English man ; but he had not the attractive properties with which a sensitive and affectionate nature endowed Mr. St. Aubyn : moreover he was also young, and young people are far harder on every one but themselves, than the old. Indulgence to others, allowance for faults, comes with age. Mr. Fenton was talking to Mr. St. Aubyn, but his eyes followed Egerton. The Rector had been a witness, in that very room, of the passionate attachment which Egerton could not help at one time evincing for Cecile.

He could never make out whether it were returned or not. But now the point was settled ; Egerton did not speak to Cecile ; she did not even turn her head to him, and after a few minutes, she went to a distant part of the room, where the tea table had been for some time prepared. Egerton did not follow. Mr. Fenton could not imagine how he could help it ; she looked so interesting ; she was, the Rector knew, so good, so kind to all who came within her reach ; so intelligent, yet so unassuming. But Egerton was, it seemed, engrossed with the expected arrival of some friends at New Court, and was settling it all with Mrs. St. Aubyn. Rooms were even then, ready for a lady and her family, and Egerton was speculating when they could arrive the next day. It was the subject then with him. He never consulted Cecile about it ; he never uttered a word to her, except when he went to put his teacup down on the table, he said, in a grave tone, — " I hope Mrs. Muddlestone's visit will not disarrange any of your plans."

"Not at all," was the answer. " I think my mother has arranged everything." The reply was given in a low voice, and Cecile never raised her eyes as she spoke. ' Oh, what a world is this ! Even to one's home, the only certain haven, estrangements will come ! Just now, Mrs. Muddlestone was everything with Egerton, and he very soon went to his own room, saying that he should write and send his letter by a groom to meet her at a stage from New Court, to prevent all possibility of her thinking of going to an inn. " She will stay a long time, and Miss Osmond also," he said, as, without one word more, he passed Mrs. St. Aubyn on his way to the door, closed it, and was seen no more for an hour. Mr. Fenton looked on through his spectacles, and wondered. " You will be pleased, Miss Harcourt, to have some young companions," he said, kindly, for the composed sad face caught his attention.

" It will be more cheerful for everyone, when they are here," answered Cecile. " But how people can travel such weather," shivered Mrs. St. Aubyn ; " why, it is quite winter." The Rector answered gravely, — " Yes," and then added, turning to Mr. St. Aubyn, " I wanted to say a word or two to you about that poor lad, Powys, who does not rally." He glanced at Cecile, as he spoke. "I thought not, either," she said; and her eyes silled with tears. " So so," thought the Rector; "is it come to weeping, forsooth ?" He went off, nevertheless, with Mr. St. Aubyn, and their conference was long and serious. " I hope Mr. Fenton doesn't mean to send Mr. Powys away, and put in his nephew," observed Mrs. St. Aubyn ; " for I can't endure him — he carves so badly." Just as she had drawn her Albanian scarf around her, and was meditating whether she could possibly undergo the exertion of walk ing as far as a table in the middle ofthe room, to reach a book (over which she usually first shivered, then slept), a loud noise was heard on the hall stairs, — and the words "Don't say a word about it, dear Mrs. Muddlestone ; pray don't mention it — you cannot come at an in convenient hour.

Mrs. St. Aubyn is rather de licate, just now," were heard from Egerton. " What can it be ?" exclaimed Mrs. St. Aubyn, with an awe-struck look to Cecile. " I suppose," said Cecile, with a slight quiver of her lip, " Egerton's friends are arrived." " They are !" returned Mrs. St. Aubyn, VOL. II. D with as solemn an expression of face as if she had announced the burial of all the Muddlestones. At this juncture, the door was opened, and Egerton St. Aubyn led up to his aunt a lady of easy gait and portly form, with these words : — "Mrs. St. Aubyn, let me introduce to you the favourite relation and friend of some of my family : for my sake," he added, " You will be glad to hear that Mrs. Muddlestone is likely to settle in this neighbourhood." "You will find it perishingly cold," said Mrs. St. Aubyn.

" A clayey soil, and more east winds than I ever knew anywhere else ; I wonder why they come here so. Would you like to sit near the fire ?" "Well, I should," Mrs. Muddlestone replied ; " Olivia, dear, come out of the shade, and be presented to Mrs. St. Aubyn, (it's like going to court, isn't it, dear?) No, I forgot, you're old friends. — And who is that ? I see another strange face by the fireplace." " My cousin," said Egerton, in some em barrassment. "Come now, she ain't your cousin, you know as well as I. Miss Harcourt, let me kiss you, dear — you're a naughty little girl not to come forward and shake hands, at once. I'm sorry, Mrs. St. Aubyn, to be here too soon. We weren't expected, that's plain ; but our lodgings were up, and the people so uncivil — so I left Mr. Muddlestone to take care of himself for a week or two, whilst we paid our visit here."