For some days he did not seem able to read anything but the Gospels and the Baptismal Service; and at length, after a long silence, he said, 'Mr. Audley, if your sermon is finished, can you listen to me? May I be baptized?'
Then indeed the Curate's heart bounded, but he had to keep himself restrained. The father's consent he had secured beforehand, but he thought Fernando ought to write to him; and it was also needful to consult the Rector as to the length of actual preparation and probation.
Then, when the question came, 'Can I indeed be like Felix and Lancelot' the reply had to be cautious. 'You will be as entirely pardoned, as entirely belonging to the holiness within and without, as they; but how far you will have the consciousness, I cannot tell; and it is very probable that your temptations may be harder. Guilt may be forgiven, while habits retain their power; and they have been guarded, taught self-restraint, and had an example before them in their father, such as very few have been blessed with.'
Fernando sighed long and sadly, and said, 'Then you do not think it will make much difference.'
'The difference between life and death! But you must expect to have to believe rather than feel. But go on, and it will all be clear.'
The Rector was at first anxious to wait for definite sanction from the father; but as Mr. Audley was sure of the permission he had received, and no letter could be had for several months, he agreed to examine the lad, and write to the Bishop-a new Bishop, who had been appointed within the last year, and who was coming in the spring for a Confirmation.
Mr. Bevan was really delighted with the catechumen, and wrote warmly of him. The reply was, that if the Baptism could take place the day before the Confirmation, which was to be in a month's time, the Bishop himself would like to be present, and the youth could be confirmed the next day. There was much that was convenient in this, for it gave time for Fernando to make progress in moving about. He had made a start within the last week or two, was trying to use crutches, and had been out on fine days in a chair; and once or twice Lady Price had taken him for a drive, though she had never thought of doing so by Geraldine. The doctor said that change of air would probably quite restore his health; and he had only to wait to be a little less dependent before he was to go to a tutor, an old friend of the Audley family.
Everything promised well; but one wet afternoon, in the interim between the end of Lance's and that of Fulbert's holidays, Mr. Audley, while coming down from a visit to Mrs. Underwood, fancied he heard an ominous rattle, and opening the door suddenly, found Fernando and Fulbert eagerly throwing the dice and with several shillings before them.
Both started violently as he entered, and Fulbert put his arm and hand round as if to hide the whole affair; while Fernando tried to look composed.
All that the Curate said in his surprise was one sharp sentence. 'Fernando Travis, if you are to renounce the devil, you will have to begin by throwing those dice into the fire.'
Fernando's eyes looked furious, and he swept the dice and the money into his pocket-all but three shillings. Fulbert stole out of the room quietly. No doubt these were his winnings, which he did not dare to touch.
Mr. Audley took up a book and waited, fully expecting that sorrow would follow; but Fernando did not speak; and when at length he did on some indifferent matter, it was in his ordinary tone. Well, there must be patience. No doubt repentance would come at night! No; the evening passed on, and Fernando was ready for all their usual occupations. Perhaps it would come with Felix, or in the dawn after a troubled night. Alas! no. And moreover, Felix, to whom it was necessary to speak, was exceedingly angry and vexed, and utterly incredulous of there being any good in the character that could be so fickle, if not deceitful and hypocritical. His own resolute temper had no power of comprehending the unmanliness of erring against the better will; he was absolutely incapable of understanding the horrible lassitude and craving for excitement that must have tempted Fernando, and he was hard and even ashamed of himself for having ever believed in the lad's sincerity.
This anger, too, made him speak with such a threatening tone to Fulbert as to rouse the doggedness of the boy's nature. All that could be got out of Fulbert was that 'his going there was all Felix's doing,' and he would not manifest any sign of regret, such as would be any security against his introducing the practice among the clergy orphans, or continuing it all his life. He was not a boy given to confidences, and neither Wilmet nor Cherry could get him beyond his glum declaration that it was Felix's fault, he only wanted to keep out of the fellow's way. They could only take comfort in believing that he was really ashamed, and that he suffered enough within to be a warning against the vice itself.
As to Fernando, he made no sign, he went on as if nothing had happened; and nothing was observable about him, but that he showed himself intensely weary of his present mode of life, put on at times the manners that were either those of the Spanish Don or of the Indian Cacique, and seemed to shrink from the prospect of the English tutor. Yet he continued his preparation for baptism, and Mr. Bevan was satisfied with him; but Mr. Audley was perplexed and unhappy over the reserve that had sprung up between them, and could not decide whether to make another attempt or leave the lad to himself.
One afternoon, only ten days from the time fixed for the Bishop's visit, Mr. Audley returned from a clerical meeting to find an unexpected visitor in the room-namely, Alfred Travis, Fernando's uncle, a more Americanised and rougher person than his brother. He rose as he entered. 'Good morning, Mr. Audley; you have taken good care of your charge. He is fit to start with me to-morrow. See a surgeon in town-then to Liverpool-'
'Indeed!' Mr. Audley caught a deprecating look from Fernando. 'Do you come from his father?'
'Well-yes and no. His father is still in the Oregon; but he and I have always been one-and opening the boy's letters, and finding him ready to move, I thought, as I had business in England, I'd come and fetch him, and just settle any claim the fellow at yonder hotel may have cheek enough to set up, since Fernan was green enough to let it out.'
'May I ask if you have any authority from his father?'
'Authority! Bless you! William will be glad to see his boy; we don't go by authority between brothers.'
'Because,' continued Mr. Audley, 'I heard from your brother that he wished Fernando to remain with me to receive an English education.'
'All sentiment and stuff! He knew better before we had sailed! An English squire in this wretched old country, forsooth! when the new republic is before him! No, no, Mr. Audley, I'll be open with you. I saw what you were up to when I got your letter, and Fernan-Got his lesson very well, he had. And when I came down, a friend in London gave me another hint. It won't do, I can assure you. That style of thing is all very well for you spruce parsons of good family, as you call it in the old country; but we are not going to have a rising young fellow like this, with a prospect of what would buy out all your squires and baronets in the old country, beslobbered and befooled with a lot of Puseyite cant. You've had your turn of him; it is time he should come and be a man again.'
Mr. Audley was dizzy with consternation. Fernando was no child. He was full sixteen, and he was so far recovered that his health formed no reason for detaining him. If he chose to go with his uncle, he must. If not-what then? He looked at Fernando, who sat uneasily.
'You hear what your uncle says?' he asked.
'I told him,' said Fernando, 'I must wait for a fortnight.' He spoke with eyes cast down, but not irresolutely.
His uncle broke out-He knew what that meant; it was only that he might be flattered by the Bishop and all the ladies, and made a greater fool of than ever. No, no, he must be out again by May, and he should just have time to take Fernan to one of the gay boarding- houses at Saratoga, and leave him there to enjoy himself.
'I have letters from my father,' said Fernando, looking up to Mr. Audley, 'before he went to Oregon. He said nothing.'
'Do you wish to stay?' said Mr. Audley, feeling that all depended on that, and trying to h
ide the whirl of anxiety and disappointment he felt.
The answer was not what he expected. Fernando sat upright in his chair, looked up to him and then at his uncle, and said low but resolutely, 'I will stay.'
'Then you shall stay,' said Mr. Audley.
'You have worked upon him, I see, sir, with your old-world prejudiced superstition,' said Alfred Travis, evidently under the delusion that he was keeping his temper. 'A proper fool my brother was to leave him to you. But you do it at your peril. I shall see if there's power even in this old country to keep a boy from his own relations. You'll see me again, Fernan. You had better make ready.'
The words were not unaccompanied with expletives such as had never been personally uttered to Charles Audley before, and that brought the hot colour to his cheek. When he looked round, Fernando's face was covered with his hands. 'Oh! Mr. Audley,' he cried, as his uncle hastily shut the door, 'is he going to send for the police?'
'I do not believe he can do any such thing,' said Mr. Audley, seeing that Fernando was in great nervous agitation. 'I have authority from your father, he has none; and you are old enough to make your own decision. You really mean and wish to stay?' he added.
'I told him so from the first,' said Fernando.
'Then he has no power to force you away.'
Fernando was silent. Then he said, 'If I could have gone after my Baptism.'
'Would you have wished that?' said Mr. Audley, somewhat disappointed.
The tears were now on the long black lashes.
'Oh, don't think me ungrateful, or-But this English life does come over me as intolerably dull and slow. No life nor go in it. Sometimes I feel sick of it; and going back to books and all, after what I have been used to. If my uncle could wait for my Baptism, or,' more hesitating, 'if I could be baptized at once. Men do lead Christian lives out there. I would try to keep from evil, Mr. Audley. I see your face! Is this another temptation of the devil?'
'I think it is an attempt of his,' said Mr. Audley, sadly. 'Even here you have not been able to abstain entirely from giving way to your old passion, when you had little temptation, and felt your honour bound. What will it be when you have comparatively no restraint?'
'I am resolved not to go unbaptized,' said Fernando. 'I said so from the first, but he will not wait! Yet if my father sends for me, I must go.'
'Then it will be your duty, and you will have more right to look for help. Besides, a summons from your father could not come for three or four months, and in that time you would have had time to gain something in Christian practice and training.'
'Oh, there is the bell! Must you go, Mr. Audley? He will come back!'
'I wish I could stay, but Smith is gone to Dearport, and I do not know whether the Rector is in. Besides, this must be your own doing, Fernan, not mine. I shall pray for you, that you well know. Pray for yourself, for this is a real crisis of life. God bless you, my dear boy.' He laid his hand on the head, and Fernando looked up gratefully, then said, 'You never did that before. May Lance come to me, if he has not gone?'
'I will call him,' said Mr. Audley, seeing that he really dreaded being alone. The little boy was on the stairs with something in his hand. 'Go in to Fernan,' he was told, 'he wants you. What have you got there?'
'This queer drawing. Cherry found it in an old portfolio, and has been copying it.'
It was Ketzsch's outline of the chess-player, and it almost startled Mr. Audley by its appropriateness. He went out to Evensong, and never was more glad to get back to reinforce the feeble garrison.
Lance opened the front door to him. 'I'm so glad you are come!' he said. 'Mr. Bruce is there.'
'Not the uncle?'
'No, only Mr. Bruce.'
Mr. Bruce was a lawyer, and a very respectable man, in whom Mr. Audley felt confidence. He rose at the clergyman's entrance, and asked to speak to him in another room, so he was taken into the little back dining-room, and began-'This is a very unpleasant business, Mr. Audley; this gentleman is very much annoyed, and persuaded that he has a right to carry off his nephew; but as I told him, it all turns upon the father's expressions. Have you any written authority from him?'
Mr. Audley had more than one letter, thanking him, and expressing full satisfaction in the proposed arrangements for Fernando; and this Mr. Bruce thought was full justification, together with the youth's own decided wishes. The words were likewise clear, by which William Travis had given consent to his son's Baptism, but there was no witness of them. Mr. Bruce explained that Alfred Travis, who seemed to regard Fernando as the common property of the brothers, had come to him in what he gently termed 'a great state of excitement,' complaining of a Puseyite plot. He had evidently taken umbrage at the tone of the letters he had opened for his brother, and had been further prejudiced by some Dearport timber merchant he had met at Liverpool, who had told him how the parson had got hold of his nephew, and related a farrago of gossip about St. Oswald's. He was furious at the opposition, and could not understand that law in the old country was powerless in this case, because he was neither father nor guardian. In fact he seemed to be master of his brother; and Mr. Bruce told Mr. Audley that it was quite to be considered whether though law was on his side now, the father might not be brought over to the brother's side, be very angry at the detention of the boy, and refuse the payment, which, while he was in America, could not be forced from him. Of that Mr. Audley could happily afford to run the risk; and Mr. Bruce said he had also set before the young gentleman that he might have to suffer much displeasure from his father for his present refusal, although his right to make it was incontestable. To this Fernando had likewise made up his mind; and Mr. Bruce, who had never seen him before, thought he looked utterly unfit for a long journey and sea voyage, so that the uncle had taken nothing by his application to the law.
Fernando was flushed and panting, but more resolute, for resentment at the attempt at force had come to back him up, and rouse the spirit of resistance. Not half an hour had elapsed before there was another ring at the door. The uncle and lawyer were come together now. It was to make a last offer to Fernando; Mr. Alfred Travis offered to take him up to London the next day, and there to have advice as to the safety of the voyage, in the meantime letting him be baptized, if nothing else would satisfy him, but by some London clergyman-not one of the Bexley set whom the uncle regarded with such aversion.
Fernando drew himself up, and stood, leaning on the end of the sofa. 'Thank you, uncle,' he said, 'I cannot. I am obeying my father now, and I will not leave those to whom he trusted me.'
There followed a volley of abuse of his English obstinacy and Spanish pride and canting conceit, which made Mr. Bruce stand aghast, and Fernando look up with burning cheeks and eyes glowing like hot coals; but with the Indian impassibility he did not speak till Alfred Travis had threatened him not only with his father's displeasure, but with being cast off by both, and left to his English friends' charity.
'My father will not!' said Fernando. 'If he sends for me I will come.' But there his strength suddenly collapsed, and he was forced to sit down and lean back.
'Well, Fernan,' said his uncle, suddenly withdrawing his attempt when he found it vain, 'you seem hardly in marching order, so I'm off by the night train; but if you change your mind in the next week, write to me at Peter Brown's-you know-and I'll run down. I will save you the coming out by yourself. Good-bye.'
Mr. Bruce tarried one moment to aver that he was unprepared for his client's violence, and that he thought the nephew had done quite right.
The door was shut, and Mr. Audley came back holding out his hand, but Fernando did not take it. He was occupied in supporting himself by the furniture from the sofa to the fireplace, where, holding by the mantelpiece with one hand, he took his dice from his pocket with the other, and threw them into the reddest depth. Then he held the hand to Mr. Audley, who wrung it, and said, 'It has been a hard fight, my boy.'
Fernando laid his weary head on his shoulder, and said, 'If my father is not poiso
ned against me!'
'Do not fear that, Fernando. You are where he left you. You have given up something for the sake of your new Lord and Master; you will have his armour another time.'
Fernando let himself be helped to sit down, and sighed. He was thoroughly worn out, and his victory was not such as to enliven his spirits. He took up the drawing that lay on the table, and gazed on it in a sort of dreamy fascination.
'You have checked him this time,' said Mr. Audley.
'Here or there, I will never bet again,' said Fernan solemnly.
'God help me to keep the resolution! It is the one thing that I care for, and I know I should have begun the first day I was away from you.'
'I think that with those tastes you cannot make too strong a resolution against it,' said Mr. Audley.
Their dinner was brought in, but Fernando had no appetite. He soon returned to his chess player, and seemed to be playing over the game, but he was too much tired for talk, and soon went to bed; where after a short sleep feverishness set in, bringing something approaching to delirium. The nurse had gone a fortnight previously; but as he was still too helpless to have no one within call, Felix slept on the bed in the corner of the room.
When he came down the opening of the door was greeted by 'Don't let him come! Is Mr. Audley there!'
'Yes, he is not gone.'
Then he knew Felix, but soon began again to talk of the game at chess, evidently mixing up his uncle with the personage with the long feather.
'He has been checked once. I've taken one piece of his. He is gone now. Will he come back after my Baptism? No; I shall go to him.'
This lasted till past midnight, when, as they were deliberating whether to send for Mr. Rugg, he fell soundly asleep, and awoke in the morning depressed, but composed and peaceful; and this state of things continued. The encounter with his uncle, and the deliberate choice, had apparently given some shock to his nerves; and whenever night recurred, there came two or three hours of misery, and apparently of temptation and terror. It took different forms. Sometimes it was half in sleep-the acting over again of one or two horrible scenes that he had partly witnessed in the Southern States, when an emancipator had been hunted down, and the slaves who had listened to him savagely punished. In spite of his Spanish blood, the horror had been ineffaceable; and his imagination connected it with the crowd of terrors that had revealed themselves to his awakened conscience. He seemed to think that if he lost in the awful game of life, he should be handed over to that terrible slave-master; and there were times when Diego's fate, and his own lapses, so fastened on his mind, as to make him despair of ever being allowed to quit that slave-master's dominions; and that again joined with alarm lest his uncle should return and claim him.
The Pillars of the House, V1 Page 18
