Читать книгу Gathered In - Catherine Helen Spence - Страница 8

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The liberality with which George Oswald had begun towards Kenneth and the old people never flagged; indeed it increased, for he said he had prospered more ever since he made up his mind to do the right thing by them all. Gradually the Oswalds got into a better home with better furniture, and secured more help and attendance. The greatest stroke of business for their comfort Kenneth thought he had executed just on the expiration of his first year at College, when he contrived that Nelly Lindores should leave the crowded, noisy, home where she was a slave to her stepmother and her half-brothers and sisters, and live altogether with his grandparents. This was effected by promising not only current wages for the girl's services, but also hiring a stranger to perform Nelly's multifarious duties at home. Nelly, however, did not take the position of a servant, for she had a girl under her. She was like a dutiful granddaughter or niece, to be cheerful company to the aged couple, to watch over their health and obey their pleasures. The little, deft, quick-eyed maiden waited on the folks cleverly, and brightened up the house. She wrote to Kenneth for them once a week to tell how all went on; she read out so loud and clear that John Oswald said she was nigh hand as good as Kenneth for that. She found now some leisure to make herself a little smart, and to read the books Kenneth loved, and to try and understand the things he and his College friends were interested in. John Lindores saw the improvement in his lassie's look after her change, and, but that Kenneth was bound for a life in Australia, he would not have known what to think might be the upshot.

When any of the neighbours ventured to hint to Mrs. Oswald that when Kenneth went to Melbourne, he would be for taking Nelly with him, her indignation knew no bounds. Nothing of the sort certainly! When Kenneth was in Australia at his uncle's grand place at Tingalpa, where there were horses and carriages out of number, it would be some great Australian lady, some sister or daughter of the Governor, or the Members of Parliament, or the Judges of the land, that he would be taking up with, and not a country wright's daughter, that was glad of an up-putting with such as her and the good man. The old lady's idea as to her son George's position rose with the receipt of every letter and every remittance. The family was a rising family everywhere, for the American son had taken to writing more regularly, and described a state of prosperity far beyond what he could have attained to in Scotland, but he had a very large family and needed all he had; in that different from George, who was as liberal as the day.

Nelly heard many long narratives about these two boys, and others, who had died in their early youth, and felt moderately interested in them, but she could never get the old lady to enter into particulars about her only daughter Isabel, except here and there in connection with Kenneth. Nelly naturally felt the strongest interest in Isabel; she had always felt cheated in getting her present stepmother instead of the one she would have liked so much. And Kenneth used still to take the opportunity in his holiday visits of talking to Nelly as of old about his lost mother. His grandmother was as reticent to him as to Nelly. In her mind now Kenneth and her eldest son George were constantly connected, she barely acknowledged the fact that the uncle had a son, to whom he was far more dearly bound than to the unseen, unknown, nameless, nephew; indeed the Australian grandson was very much ignored in all her visions of Kenneth's brilliant future. Somehow Mr. Oswald's letters seemed to accept Kenneth as his brother's son, and there never was the least mention of Isabel in connection with him, and when the old folks moved, shortly after Nelly's establishment with them, to a pretty village so near Edinburgh that Kenneth could occasionally walk out on Saturday to spend Sunday with them, he found that everywhere his position was accepted as that of the orphan son of that James Oswald who was lost at sea.

Kenneth had had a good many gibes and jeers to undergo in the village school in early days, and he liked the Edinburgh home because he was quite free from them. If his mother had lived he would have got the truth from her, and all his full sympathy might have partly indemnified her for years of solitary endurance; but, as he grew up to manhood, he puzzled himself long and vainly as to the subject on which his grandparents were so close and so sensitive. No idea of Mr. McDiarmid as his father entered his head until the second year at College had expired. He was so far above him, so far above anything that Isabel Oswald could have dreamt of. His kindly interest in Kenneth was sufficiently accounted for by the care and devotion which Isabel had lavished on his only sister, and the very perfection which Kenneth attributed to his patron, excluded the idea that he could have been a betrayer and a deserter of humble innocence.

Once or twice Kenneth met casually with his friend whom his grandmother had such ungenerous ideas about. How handsome, how distinguished-looking he was, how kind were his looks and bearing. Mrs. Wishart knew something about him, and when she heard that Kenneth was interested in him she would speak of what an old family it was, and how he had rather married beneath him in point of position in allying himself to Miss Syme, who was said to be an heiress, but at any rate was a very nice girl, and her father and mother were very proud to talk about their daughter at Castle Diarmid.

The day on which Kenneth's eyes were opened was a great day at Edinburgh University. A new Rector was just installed, and he had been giving an inaugural address, and Kenneth saw on the platform near the person of the lecturer, to whom all eyes were turned, the face and form of his honoured patron. Just as he looked from behind his fellow-students by whom he was partly concealed, he suddenly caught Mr. McDiarmid's eye resting upon him with an interest and affection altogether beyond anything that goodwill towards himself, or gratitude for his mother's services towards a dead sister could have called forth. The eyes met, and Mr. McDiarmid the finished, collected gentleman, flushed visably at the questioning yearning glance of the tall lad, whose mother seemed to look out of his eyes and quiver in his lips. Kenneth too flushed, and then turned as pale as death, and leaned against the corner of the Hall to support himself. Close behind Mr. McDiarmid stood a fair stripling, undoubtedly his son and heir. It was not the heirship, but the nearness, the countenance, the thousand memories and hopes and expectations that twined these two together, that Kenneth envied. It was not what his father might do to further his own fortunes or position that he longed for, it was what he might have done for his father that was forbidden under these cruel circumstances that wrung his heart. "When he is old that is the arm he will lean on; when he is troubled, that is the company that will cheer him. In his joy, that lad will rejoice; in his sorrow, he has a right to grieve. He will stand by him through life, and on his death-bed he will close his eyes, and there is nothing for me to do; no place where I can stand to help or console." Thus in the bitterness of his heart Kenneth communed with his own soul, and his friend, Henry Stalker, who stood near, wondered what had come over him. How long the subsequent proceedings appeared! When all was over, he was hurrying out to take a long solitary walk before he could face either Stalker or Mrs. Wishart, when he met Mr. McDiarmid's eye again. It was a glance of command, and it arrested him. He observed that he committed the fair stripling to the care of a white-haired gentleman, probably his grandfather, and went straight towards the darker older lad.

A kind hand was laid on his shoulder, a kind voice fell on his ear. The sense of isolation and of severance from parental love and filial duty vanished at that magic touch, but the heart was too full for words.

"Kenneth, my boy, you are not well. Come with me." And he led the way to the familiar hotel where they had dined together years ago, and from which they had sallied on that never-to-be-forgotten walk. No word was spoken until they got into a private room, and Mr. McDiarmid shut the door. He took the lad's hands in his own, and with an expression of tenderness such as Kenneth had never seen on human face since he had lost his mother, watched the vain efforts to swallow back the gathering tears and choking sobs which shook his whole frame.

"It was a crowd. It was very hot--there is really nothing the matter with me," said Kenneth, speaking with short pauses as he found voice, endeavouring to regain his self command.

In the large mirror over the mantleshelf both faces were reflected: Kenneth's was aged by emotion, Mr. McDiarmid's made perhaps more youthful by sympathy; and the likeness between them even in countenance, which was not noticeable at other times, came out startling to both.

"How can I help vexing myself. How can I but feel your grief. How can I help feeling humble in your eyes and my own. Only try to forgive me. Kenneth, my son, my son. Your mother did."

At this allusion to his mother, the tears could no longer be repressed. "What have I to forgive, Sir. Only, only, I cannot help being doubly sorry that I have lost her, and cannot get you," and he raised his father's hand to his lips. "And I can never get you, because it would only hurt you if such as I took it upon me to serve you. But don't grieve about it. I'll get over it. I got over her dying, and that was worst of all. And I am going to Australia in a year, and it will be all the same. Why need you grieve for me?"

"Don't be too cruel to me, Kenneth. Give me the right to grieve in your grief." And in the affecting words of Scripture, Norman McDiarmid fell on his son's neck and kissed him, and they wept sore. When he had thus given vent to long-repressed affection and emotion, he tried to resume the conversation in a calmer tone.

"And you are doing well, I hear. Mr. Shiel gives a good account of you."

"Nothing out of the way, Sir. If I could take a degree, or anything like that, would it make any difference?"

"If it is nothing out of the way. I hear that your progress and your conduct have both been very satisfactory, and that you will do credit to your Uncle George."

"Oh! to Uncle George, I dare say; but if mother had only lived I think I might have done more; or if it could have brought me just a little nearer to you;" and the beseeching eyes pleaded hard.

Mr. McDiarmid winced. "But the studies are good in themselves, are they not? I hear that mental and moral philosophy is your favourite study, though you do well all through."

"Yes, that interests me most, because I think it might throw some light on the best way of living; and that has always seemed to me of more service than things to be learned and known. You must not think that I do not like the College, or that I am ungrateful to Uncle George for what he is doing for me; but just this day it seemed like apples of Sodom."

"When do you go to Australia, Kenneth?" said his father after a pause.

"Next year I reckon on starting for an unknown life. But do not be angry with me if I ask a question. Was not that your son that was standing alongside of you who went out with the old gentleman?"

"Yes, Kenneth, my son; that was your brother, Norman."

"And you've no need of me, I should be glad; but, oh! it feels hard to come all on me at once. But, thank God, you have called me your son."

"My son, my first born."

"And I may love you as much as---"

"As much as you can Kenneth".

"And that is much; but---"

"But you regret the severance; you cannot regret the severance more than I do. But my dearest boy, your position in Australia as your uncle's helper and honoured kinsman is far better for yourself than any recognition I could give you; and any notice I might take of you could only injure you with those who deserve your love and rightfully claim your services. It is hard to say it, but it must be said--You must go your way in the world, and leave me to mine; only do it as kindly towards me as possible. You are young and impressible; I pray God you may never be placed in circumstances of such temptation as your mother and I were in. They say that the punishment of such sin is very unequal. To the world's eyes it is. What my Isabel had to bear I can guess. She made no complaint to me, but she wrote to me with her dying hand that she had not been unhappy through it all, for she felt God had forgiven her when he sent her so good a son as you; when she could do everything for you, and was all the world to you. How could you have served me better than by being such a son to her? How can I be grateful enough to you for this? And can I be called prosperous and unpunished when I am not able to do anything for you; when I cannot claim your duty; cannot take pride in your progress; when even the poor money help I entreated to be allowed to give had been rejected; and your mother's despised kin are educating my unowned son as I could educate the heir to my name and estates, and keeping that son apart from me as if my touch were poison? Your mother made every sacrifice she could for me. I apparently can make none. Kenneth, do you feel a little for me? Can you forgive me, my son?"

The young man knelt reverently at his father's feet--"As heartily as I hope to be forgiven myself. Only bless me, me also! Oh! my father."

"May our Heavenly Father bless my dear son, and guide him, in life and death," said Norman McDiarmid solemnly.

This explanation seemed to tranquillize both father and son. The father could not go back to his earliest memories of his boy, but he led Kenneth to go back to his first memories of his mother, and his life with her. Seen through the haze of years it seemed a lovely pastoral idyll, the life of those two so wrapped up in each other. Kenneth knew of no scorn or reproach which his mother encountered, and Norman McDiarmid felt her words corroborated by the description of the happy life he had led, the walks and talks and books and plans. Information he had been thirsting to obtain for eighteen years as to how that severed life had flowed apart from him came naturally from Kenneth.

Painful as the interview and explanation had been for both, both felt very glad it had taken place. The father felt indescribably relieved as to the past, and hopeful for the future career of his son; and Kenneth was so overpowered, oppressed, and yet strangely proud. "Surely," he thought to himself, "in the many years of life probably in store for both of us, I may do something for him, something to show that I am worthy to be called his son."