The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Complete

“Oh! never mind me, Vivian; I have come to speak of yourself. I have left Trevanion; it is settled that I should go to the University, and we all quit town in a few days.”

“In a few days!—all! Who are ‘all’?”

“My family,—father, mother, uncle, cousin, and myself. But, my dear fellow, now let us think seriously what is best to be done for you. I can present you to Trevanion.”

“Ha!”

“But Trevanion is a hard, though an excellent man, and, moreover, as he is always changing the subjects that engross him, in a month or so he may have nothing to give you. You said you would work,—will you consent not to complain if the work cannot be done in kid gloves? Young men who have risen high in the world have begun, it is well known, as reporters to the press. It is a situation of respectability, and in request, and not easy to obtain, I fancy; but still—”

Vivian interrupted me hastily.

“Thank you a thousand times! But what you say confirms a resolution I had taken before you came. I shall make it up with my family and return home.”

“Oh, I am so really glad. How wise in you!”

Vivian turned away his head abruptly.

“Your pictures of family life and domestic peace, you see,” he said, “seduced me more than you thought. When do you leave town?”

“Why, I believe, early next week.”

“So soon,” said Vivian, thoughtfully. “Well, perhaps I may ask you yet to introduce me to Mr. Trevanion; for who knows?—my family and I may fall out again. But I will consider. I think I have heard you say that this Trevanion is a very old friend of your father’s or uncle’s?”

“He, or rather Lady Ellinor, is an old friend of both.”

“And therefore would listen to your recommendations of me. But perhaps I may not need them. So you have left—left of your own accord—a situation that seemed more enjoyable, I should think, than rooms in a college. Left, why did you leave?”

And Vivian fixed his bright eyes full and piercingly on mine.

“It was only for a time, for a trial, that I was there,” said I, evasively; “out at nurse, as it were, till the Alma Mater opened her arms,—alma indeed she ought to be to my father’s son.”

Vivian looked unsatisfied with my explanation, but did not question me further. He himself was the first to turn the conversation, and he did this with more affectionate cordiality than was common to him. He inquired into our general plans, into the probabilities of our return to town, and drew from me a description of our rural Tusculum. He was quiet and subdued; and once or twice I thought there was a moisture in those luminous eyes. We parted with more of the unreserve and fondness of youthful friendship—at least on my part, and seemingly on his—than had yet endeared our singular intimacy; for the cement of cordial attachment had been wanting to an intercourse in which one party refused all confidence, and the other mingled distrust and fear with keen interest and compassionate admiration.

That evening, before lights were brought in, my father, turning to me, abruptly asked if I had seen my friend, and what he was about to do.

“He thinks of returning to his family,” said I.

Roland, who had seemed dozing, winced uneasily.

“Who returns to his family?” asked the Captain.

“Why, you must know,” said my father, “that Sisty has fished up a friend of whom he can give no account that would satisfy a policeman, and whose fortunes he thinks himself under the necessity of protecting. You are very lucky that he has not picked your pockets, Sisty; but I dare say he has. What’s his name?”

“Vivian,” said I,—“Francis Vivian.”

“A good name and a Cornish,” said my father. “Some derive it from the Romans,—Vivianus; others from a Celtic word which means—”

“Vivian!” interrupted Roland. “Vivian!—I wonder if it be the son of Colonel Vivian.”

“He is certainly a gentleman’s son,” said I; “but he never told me what his family and connections were.”

“Vivian,” repeated my uncle,—“poor Colonel Vivian! So the young man is going to his father. I have no doubt it is the same. Ah!—”

“What do you know of Colonel Vivian or his son?” said I. “Pray, tell me; I am so interested in this young man.”

“I know nothing of either, except by gossip,” said my uncle, moodily. “I did hear that Colonel Vivian, an excellent officer and honorable man, had been in—in—” (Roland’s voice faltered) “in great grief about his son, whom, a mere boy, he had prevented from some improper marriage, and who had run away and left him,—it was supposed for America. The story affected me at the time,” added my uncle, trying to speak calmly.

We were all silent, for we felt why Roland was so disturbed, and why Colonel Vivian’s grief should have touched him home. Similarity in affliction makes us brothers even to the unknown.

“You say he is going home to his family,—I am heartily glad of it!” said the envying old soldier, gallantly.

The lights came in then, and two minutes after, Uncle Roland and I were nestled close to each other, side by side; and I was reading over his shoulder, and his finger was silently resting on that passage that had so struck him: “I have not complained, have I, sir? And I won’t complain!”

PART X

CHAPTER I

My uncle’s conjecture as to the parentage of Francis Vivian seemed to me a positive discovery. Nothing more likely than that this wilful boy had formed some headstrong attachment which no father would sanction, and so, thwarted and irritated, thrown himself on the world. Such an explanation was the more agreeable to me as it cleared up much that had appeared discreditable in the mystery that surrounded Vivian. I could never bear to think that he had done anything mean and criminal, however I might believe he had been rash and faulty. It was natural that the unfriended wanderer should have been thrown into a society, the equivocal character of which had failed to revolt the audacity of an inquisitive mind and adventurous temper; but it was natural also that the habits of gentle birth, and that silent education which English gentlemen commonly receive from their very cradle, should have preserved his honor, at least, intact through all. Certainly the pride, the notions, the very faults of the well-born had remained in full force,—why not the better qualities, however smothered for the time? I felt thankful for the thought that Vivian was returning to an element in which he might repurify his mind, refit himself for that sphere to which he belonged, thankful that we might yet meet, and our present half-intimacy mature, perhaps, into healthful friendship.

It was with such thoughts that I took up my hat the next morning to seek Vivian, and judge if we had gained the right clew, when we were startled by what was a rare sound at our door,—the postman’s knock. My father was at the Museum; my mother in high conference, or close preparation for our approaching departure, with Mrs. Primmins; Roland, I, and Blanche had the room to ourselves.

“The letter is not for me,” said Pisistratus.

“Nor for me, I am sure,” said the Captain, when the servant entered and confuted him,—for the letter was for him. He took it up wonderingly and suspiciously, as Glumdalclitch took up Gulliver, or as (if naturalists) we take up an unknown creature that we are not quite sure will not bite and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you, Captain Roland; for you start and change color,—you suppress a cry as you break the seal; you breathe hard as you read; and the letter seems short—but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it up, crumple it, thrust it into your breast-pocket, and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, but rather of fear, agitation, bewilderment. Yet the eyes are bright, too, and there is a smile on that iron lip.

My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily for his cane and his hat, and then began buttoning his coat across his broad breast, though the day was hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the metropolis.

“You are not going out, uncle?”

“Yes, Yes.”

“But are you strong enough yet? Let me go with you.”

“No, sir; no. Blanche, come here.” He took the child in his arms, surveyed her wistfully, and kissed her. “You have never given me pain, Blanche: say, ‘God bless and prosper you, father!’”

“God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!” said Blanche, putting her little hands together, as if in prayer.

“There—that should bring me luck, Blanche,” said the Captain, gayly, and setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant, and putting on his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly forth; and I saw him, from the window, march along the streets as cheerfully as if he had been besieging Badajoz.

“God prosper thee too!” said I, involuntarily.

And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her prettiest way (and her pretty ways were many), “I wish you would come with us, cousin Sisty, and help me to love papa. Poor papa! he wants us both,—he wants all the love we can give him.”

“That he does, my dear Blanche; and I think it a great mistake that we don’t all live together. Your papa ought not to go to that tower of his at the world’s end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with a garden full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the May,—from May to November; to say nothing of a duck that is more sagacious than any creature in the Fables I gave you the other day.”

Blanche laughed and clapped her hands. “Oh, that would be so nice! But”—and she stopped gravely, and added, “but then, you see, there would not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure that the tower must love him very much, for he loves it dearly.”

It was my turn to laugh now. “I see how it is, you little witch,” said I; “you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls! With all my heart, so far as I am concerned.”

“Sisty,” said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity on her face, “do you know what I’ve been thinking?”

“Not I, miss—what? Something very deep, I can see,—very horrible, indeed, I fear; you look so serious.”

“Why, I’ve been thinking,” continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle, and without the least bit of a blush—“I’ve been thinking that I’ll be your little wife; and then, of course, we shall all live together.”

Blanche did not blush, but I did. “Ask me that ten years hence, if you dare, you impudent little thing; and now, run away to Mrs. Primmins and tell her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say ‘Good morning.’”

But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity seemed exceedingly hurt at my mode of taking her alarming proposition, for she retired into a corner pouting, and sat down with great majesty. So there I left her, and went my way to Vivian. He was out; but seeing books on his table, and having nothing to do, I resolved to wait for his return. I had enough of my father in me to turn at once to the books for company; and by the side of some graver works which I had recommended, I found certain novels in French that Vivian had got from a circulating library. I had a curiosity to read these; for except the old classic novels of France, this mighty branch of its popular literature was then new to me. I soon got interested; but what an interest!—the interest that a nightmare might excite if one caught it out of one’s sleep and set to work to examine it. By the side of what dazzling shrewdness, what deep knowledge of those holes and corners in the human system of which Goethe must have spoken when he said somewhere,—if I recollect right, and don’t misquote him, which I’ll not answer for “There is something in every man’s heart which, if we could know, would make us hate him,”—by the side of all this, and of much more that showed prodigious boldness and energy of intellect, what strange exaggeration; what mock nobility of sentiment; what inconceivable perversion of reasoning; what damnable demoralization! The true artist, whether in Romance or the Drama, will often necessarily interest us in a vicious or criminal character; but he does not the less leave clear to our reprobation the vice or the crime. But here I found myself called upon, not only to feel interest in the villain (which would be perfectly allowable,—I am very much interested in Macbeth and Lovelace), but to admire and sympathize with the villany itself. Nor was it the confusion of all wrong and right in individual character that shocked me the most, but rather the view of society altogether, painted in colors so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw down a deluge. It was the hatred, carefully instilled, of the poor against the rich; it was the war breathed between class and class; it was that envy of all superiorities which loves to show itself by allowing virtue only to a blouse, and asserting; that a man must be a rogue if he belong to that rank of society in which, from the very gifts of education, from the necessary associations of circumstance, roguery is the last thing probable or natural. It was all this, and things a thousand times worse, that set my head in a whirl, as hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed, spell-bound, on these Chimeras and Typhons,—these symbols of the Destroying Principle. “Poor Vivian!” said I, as I rose at last; “if thou readest these books with pleasure or from habit, no wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong, and to have a great cavity where thy brain should have the bump of ‘conscientiousness’ in full salience!”

Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through time imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to see, by my watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave a line fixing an appointment for the morrow, and so depart, when I heard Vivian’s knock,—a knock that had great character in it, haughty, impatient, irregular; not a neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock that seemed to set the whole house and street at defiance: it was a knock bullying—a knock ostentatious—a knock irritating and offensive—impiger and iracundus.

But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock; it was a step light, yet firm—slow, yet elastic.

The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed Vivian of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he cast that hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt to cast when he has left his papers about and finds some idler, on whose trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the midst of the unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my conscience was so unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the general suspiciousness of Vivian’s character.

“Three hours, at least, have I been here!” said I, maliciously.

“Three hours!”—again the look.

“And this is the worst secret I have discovered,”—and I pointed to those literary Manicheans.

“Oh!” said he, carelessly, “French novels! I don’t wonder you stayed so long. I can’t read your English novels,—flat and insipid; there are truth and life here.”

“Truth and life!” cried I, every hair on my head erect with astonishment. “Then hurrah for falsehood and death!”

“They don’t please you,—no accounting for tastes.”

“I beg your pardon,—I account for yours, if you really take for truth and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For Heaven’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t suppose that any man could get on in England,—get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island,—if he squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I find here.”

“How many years are you my senior,” asked Vivian, sneeringly, “that you should play the mentor and correct my ignorance of the world?”

“Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is something far wiser than they,—the instinct of a man’s heart and a gentleman’s honor.”

“Well, well,” said Vivian, rather discomposed, “let the poor books alone; you know my creed—that books influence us little one way or the other.”

“By the great Egyptian library and the soul of Diodorus! I wish you could hear my father upon that point. Come,” added I, with sublime compassion, “come, it is not too late, do let me introduce you to my father. I will consent to read French novels all my life if a single chat with Austin Caxton does not send you home with a happier face and lighter heart. Come, let me take you back to dine with us to-day.”

“I cannot,” said Vivian, with some confusion; “I cannot, for this day I leave London. Some other time perhaps,—for,” he added, but not heartily, “we may meet again.”

“I hope so,” said I, wringing his hand, “and that is likely, since, in spite of yourself, I have guessed your secret,—your birth and parentage.”

“How!” cried Vivian, turning pale and gnawing his lip. “What do you mean? Speak.”

“Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway son of Colonel Vivian? Come, say the truth; let us be confidants.”

Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs; and, then, seating himself, leaned his face on the table, confused, no doubt, to find himself discovered.

“You are near the mark,” said he, at last, “but do not ask me further yet. Some day,” he cried impetuously, and springing suddenly to his feet, “some day you shall know all,—yes, some day, if I live, when that name shall be high in the world; yes, when the world is at my feet!” He stretched his right hand as if to grasp the space, and his whole face was lighted with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away, and with a slight return of his scornful smile he said: “Dreams yet; dreams! And now, look at this paper.” And he drew out a memorandum, scrawled over with figures.

“This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you; in a few days I shall discharge it. Give me your address.”

“Oh!” said I, pained, “can you speak to me of money, Vivian?”

“It is one of those instincts of honor you cite so often,” answered he, coloring. “Pardon me.”

“That is my address,” said I, stooping to write, in order to conceal my wounded feelings. “You will avail yourself of it, I hope, often, and tell me that you are well and happy.”

“When I am happy you shall know.”

“You do not require any introduction to Trevanion?”

Vivian hesitated. “No, I think not. If ever I do, I will write for it.”

I took up my hat, and was about to go,—for I was still chilled and mortified,—when, as if by an irresistible impulse, Vivian came to me hastily, flung his arms round my neck, and kissed me as a boy kisses his brother.

“Bear with me!” he cried in a faltering voice; “I did not think to love any one as you have made me love you, though sadly against the grain. If you are not my good angel, it is that nature and habit are too strong for you. Certainly some day we shall meet again. I shall have time, in the mean while, to see if the world can be indeed ‘mine oyster, which I with sword can open.’ I would be aut Caesar aut nullus! Very little other Latin know I to quote from! If Caesar, men will forgive me all the means to the end; if nullus, London has a river, and in every street one may buy a cord!”

“Vivian! Vivian!”

“Now go, my dear friend, while my heart is softened,—go before I shock you with some return of the native Adam. Go, go!”

And taking me gently by the arm, Francis Vivian drew me from the room, and re-entering, locked his door.

Ah! if I could have left him Robert Hall, instead of those execrable Typhons! But would that medicine have suited his case, or must grim Experience write sterner prescriptions with iron hand?

CHAPTER II

When I got back, just in time for dinner, Roland had not returned, nor did he return till late in the evening. All our eyes were directed towards him, as we rose with one accord to give him welcome; but his face was like a mask,—it was locked and rigid and unreadable.

Shutting the door carefully after him, he came to the hearth, stood on it, upright and calm, for a few moments, and then asked,—

“Has Blanche gone to bed?”

“Yes,” said my mother, “but not to sleep, I am sure; she made me promise to tell her when you came back.”

Roland’s brow relaxed.

“To-morrow, sister,” said he, slowly, “will you see that she has the proper mourning made for her? My son is dead.”

“Dead!” we cried with one voice, and surrounded him with one impulse.

“Dead! impossible,—you could not say it so calmly. Dead,—how do you know? You may be deceived. Who told you? why do you think so?”

“I have seen his remains,” said my uncle, with the same gloomy calm. “We will all mourn for him. Pisistratus, you are heir to my name now, as to your father’s. Good-night; excuse me, all—all you dear and kind ones; I am worn out.” Roland lighted his candle and went away, leaving us thunderstruck; but he came back again, looked round, took up his book, open in the favorite passage, nodded again, and again vanished. We looked at each other as if we had seen a ghost. Then my father rose and went out of the room, and remained in Roland’s till the night was well-nigh gone! We sat up, my mother and I, till he returned. His benign face looked profoundly sad.

“How is it, sir? Can you tell us more?” My father shook his head.

“Roland prays that you may preserve the same forbearance you have shown hitherto, and never mention his son’s name to him. Peace be to the living, as to the dead! Kitty, this changes our plans; we must all go to Cumberland,—we cannot leave Roland thus!”

“Poor, poor Roland!” said my mother, through her tears. “And to think that father and son were not reconciled! But Roland forgives him now,—oh, yes, now!”

“It is not Roland we can censure,” said my father, almost fiercely; “it is—But enough; we must hurry out of town as soon as we can: Roland will recover in the native air of his old ruins.”

We went up to bed mournfully. “And so,” thought I, “ends one grand object of my life! I had hoped to have brought those two together. But, alas, what peacemaker like the grave!”

CHAPTER III

My uncle did not leave his room for three days; but he was much closeted with a lawyer, and my father dropped some words which seemed to imply that the deceased had incurred debts, and that the poor Captain was making some charge on his small property. As Roland had said that he had seen the remains of his son, I took it at first for granted that we should attend a funeral; but no word of this was said. On the fourth day Roland, in deep mourning, entered a hackney-coach with the lawyer, and was absent about two hours. I did not doubt that he had thus quietly fulfilled the last mournful offices. On his return, he shut himself up again for the rest of the day, and would not see even my father. But the next morning he made his appearance as usual, and I even thought that he seemed more cheerful than I had yet known him,—whether he played a part, or whether the worst was now over, and the grave was less cruel than uncertainty. On the following day we all set out for Cumberland.

In the interval, Uncle Jack had been almost constantly at the house, and, to do him justice, he had seemed unaffectedly shocked at the calamity that had befallen Roland. There was, indeed, no want of heart in Uncle Jack, whenever you went straight at it; but it was hard to find if you took a circuitous route towards it through the pockets. The worthy speculator had indeed much business to transact with my father before he left town. The Anti-Publisher Society had been set up, and it was through the obstetric aid of that fraternity that the Great Book was to be ushered into the world. The new journal, the “Literary Times,” was also far advanced,—not yet out, but my father was fairly in for it. There were preparations for its debut on a vast scale, and two or three gentlemen in black—one of whom looked like a lawyer, and another like a printer, and a third uncommonly like a Jew—called twice, with papers of a very formidable aspect. All these preliminaries settled, the last thing I heard Uncle Jack say, with a slap on my father’s back, was, “Fame and fortune both made now! You may go to sleep in safety, for you leave me wide awake. Jack Tibbets never sleeps!”