The great fear he had when he opened this letter was that he had caused his brother to stumble; the great hope, that, because of his prayers, Heaven would grant it should not be so; but when, on the first hasty glance over the pages, he discovered that Alec was well, and was apparently amusing himself in a harmless way, that fear and hope instantly glided into the background; he hardly knew that they had both been strong, so faded did they look in the light of the commonplace certainty.

The next question that pressed a.s.sumed an air of paramount importance.

He had asked Alec to enter some honourable mercantile profession. He had pressed this in the first interview, when the hot-tempered young man had left him in a rage. He had argued the point in subsequent letters; he had even offered his own share of their inheritance as additional capital. He felt that he deserved an answer to this offer, and believed that his happiness depended upon Alec's acceding to the proposed change of his life-plan. His mind full of this secondary subject, he perused the sheets of the letter with singular impatience and distaste. Any man might, in the most favourable circ.u.mstances, have been excused for experiencing impatience at having so wild a tale foisted in brief confusion upon his credulity; in the mood of his present circ.u.mstance the elder Trenholme refolded the letter, using within himself the strongest language in his vocabulary.

Robert Trenholme was not a happy man just now. Since he had last seen Alec a change had come to him which made this matter of the other's calling of warmer interest than it had been. Then his early love for Sophia Rexford had been a memory and a far, half-formed hope; now it had been roused again to be a true, steady flame, an ever-present influence.

His one desire now was to win her affection. He would not be afraid then to tell her all that there was to tell of himself, and let her love decide. He did not feel that he should wrong her in this. At present he had everything to give, she everything to receive, except the possession of gentle blood, which would apparently be her only dowry. The girl he could not once have dared to address was now working servantless in her father's kitchen; he knew that it was no light drudgery; and he could offer her a comparatively luxurious home, and a name that had attracted to itself no small honour. He had a nice appreciation for what is called position, and the belief that their mutual positions had changed was very sweet to him. All his mind expanded in this thought, as the nerves of the opium-eater to the influence of his drug; it soothed him when he was weary; it consoled him when he was vexed; it had come to him as an unexpected, unsought good, like a blessing direct from heaven.

This was as things now were; but if his brother adhered to his purpose of establishing himself in his business in the same country, that would make a difference--a difference that it was hard, perhaps, for a thoughtful man to put into words, but which was still harder to wipe away by any sophistry of words. Robert Trenholme may have been wise, or he may have been foolish, but he estimated this difference as great.

Should Alec persist in this thing, it would, in the first place, endanger the success of his school, or alter his relation to that school; in the second, it would make him more unworthy in the eyes of all Sophia's well-born relatives. While he remained in suspense, therefore, he was too honourable to seek to entangle her affections by the small arts that are used for such purposes; for if the worst came, he felt that he would be too proud to ask her to be his wife, or, if love should overcome pride, and he should still sue for what he loved better than life, he must do so before he sought her heart--not after; he must lay his cause before the tribunal of Sophia's wit before she had let go her heart--a thing that he, being what he was, had not courage to do.

He was not "living a lie" (as his brother had said) any more than every man does who allows his mind to dwell on the truth of what pleases him more than on disagreeable truth. The fact that he was, by a distant tie of consanguinity, related to a gentleman of some county position in England was just as true, and to Trenholme's mind more largely true, than the fact of his father's occupation. Yet he had never made this a boast; he had never voluntarily stated the pleasant truth to any one to whom he had not also told the unpleasant; and where he had kept silence concerning the latter, he had done so by the advice of good men, and with excuse concerning his professional influence. Yet, some way, he was not sufficiently satisfied with all this to have courage to bring it before Miss Rexford, nor yet was he prepared (and here was his worldly disadvantage) to sacrifice his conscience to success. He would not ask his brother to change, except in so far as he could urge that brother's duty and advantage; he would not say to him, "Do this for my sake"; nor yet would he say, "Go, then, to the other side of the world"; nor yet, "You shall be no longer my brother."

Robert Trenholme was bearing a haunted life. The ghost was fantastic one, truly--that of a butcher's shop; but it was a very real haunting.

CHAPTER VII.

The Rexford family was without a servant. Eliza, the girl they had brought with them from Quebec, had gone to a situation at the Ch.e.l.laston hotel. The proprietor and manager of that large building, having become lame with rheumatism, had been sorely in need of a lieutenant, or housekeeper, and had chosen one with that shrewdness which had ever been his business capital. His choice had fallen on Eliza and she had accepted the place.

When Robert Trenholme heard of this arrangement he was concerned, knowing how difficult servants were to procure. He took occasion to speak to Miss Rexford on the subject, expressing sympathy with her and strong censure of Eliza.

"Indeed I am not sure but that she has done right," said Sophia.

"You surprise me very much. I thought you made somewhat of a companion of her."

"I do; and that is why, after hearing what she has to say about it, I think she has done right. She has abilities, and this is the only opening in sight in which she can exercise them."

"I should think"--sternly--"that these abilities were better unexercised."

"That is probably because you haven't the least idea what it is to have energies and faculties for which you have no scope"--this archly.

"But I should think the risk of learning pert manners--"

"That is the way men always argue about women. I tell you there is no such risk for an energetic, clever girl as to place her where the rust of unexercised faculties will eat into her soul. It is just because so many girls have to undergo this risk, and cannot do it safely, that the world is so full of women that are captious or morbid or silly. Boys treated in the same way would turn out as badly."

"But there is scope for all the highest faculties of a woman's nature in such a household as yours," cried he.

"Since you say so"--politely--"I am bound to believe it."

"No, but really--do you mean to say you don't think so?"

"You have just expressed yourself so positively that I am curious to know how you came by your knowledge, first, as to Eliza's faculties, and secondly, as to the scope for them in our house."

"It is unkind of you to laugh at me when I am only a humble enquirer after truth."

"Having expressed yourself thus modestly--"

"Nay, but I only said what I would have said about any girl in any such family."

"And you only said it with that simplicity of certainty which every man would have felt on the same subject."

"I cry a truce; I plead for mercy. Let us have out the traits of Eliza's character separately, and examine the scope in detail."

"To begin with, she has wonderful foresight; her power to plan the work of the house so as to get it done as easily as possible often surprises me. Now, of what use is this faculty in the kingdom of my step-mother, who always acts on the last impulse, and upsets every one's plans without even observing them? She has great executive ability, too; but what use is it when, as soon as she gets interested in the accomplishment of something, my mother cries, 'Come, Eliza, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; go and romp with the children!' Then, too, she has plenty of resource; but of what use is that, when the thing she sees to be best in an emergency is seldom the thing that is done?

The hotel-keeper is more observing than you; he has noticed that Eliza is no ordinary manager, and offered her high wages."

"You know, of course, what you are talking about," said Trenholme, feelingly, for he had no doubt that her sympathy with Eliza had arisen out of the pains of her own experience; "but in your house there is surely boundless room for humble, loving service; and how much better this girl would be if she could set aside her cleverness to perform such service." He did not add, "as you have done," but there was that in his voice which implied it. He went on: "I do not yet allow that you have disproved my statement, for I said that where she was she had scope for her _highest_ faculties."

"I suppose it is admitted that the highest faculty of man is worship,"

remarked Sophia, suggesting that he was not speaking to the point; "but that is no reason why a boy with a head for figures should be made a farmer, or that a young woman with special ability should remain a maid-of-all-work."

"And what of the affections--love for children, and for other women better than herself? A girl who has such privileges as this girl had with you has a far better chance of doing well than in a public hotel, even if that were a safe place for her."

Possibly Sophia thought her companion showed too great sensibility concerning Eliza's privileges, for she did not take notice of any but the last part of his sentence.

"It is a safe place for her; for she is able to take care of herself anywhere, if she chooses; and if she doesn't choose, no place is safe.

Besides, you know, the place is a boarding-house really, rather than an hotel."

"I am not so surprised at the view _you_ take of it, for you will do more than any one else to supply her place."

This, Trenholme's feeling prophecy, was quite true. Sophia did do more of Eliza's work than any one. She spared her younger sisters because she wanted them to be happy.

In spite of this, however, Sophia was not so much in need of some one's sympathy as were those younger girls, who had less work to do. A large element in happiness is the satisfaction of one's craving for romance.

Now, there are three eras of romance in human life. The first is childhood, when, even if the mind is not filled with fict.i.tious fairy tales which clothe nature, life is itself a fairy tale, a journey through an unexplored region, an enterprise full of effort and wonder, big with hope, an endless expectation, to which trivial realisations seem large. It was in this era that the younger Rexford children, up to Winifred, still lived; they built snow-men, half-expecting, when they finished them in the gloaming, that the thing of their creation would turn and pursue them; they learned to guide toboggans with a trailing toe, and half dreamed that their steeds were alive when they felt them bound and strain, so perfectly did they respond to the rider's will.

Sophia, again, had reached the third epoch of romance, when, at a certain age, people make the discovery of the wondrous loveliness in the face of the Lady Duty, and, putting a hand in hers, go onward, thinking nothing hard because of her beauty. But it is admitted by all that there is often a stage between these two, when all the romance of life is summed up in the hackneyed word "love." The pretty girls who were nicknamed Blue and Red had outgrown childhood, and they saw no particular charm in work; they were very dull, and scarce knew why, except that they half envied Eliza, who had gone to the hotel, and who, it was well known, had a suitor in the person of Mr. Cyril Harkness, the Philadelphian dentist.

Harkness had set up his consulting room in the hotel, but, for economy's sake, he lodged himself in the old Harmon house that was just beyond Captain Rexford's, on the same road. By this arrangement he pa.s.sed the latter house twice a day, but he never took any notice of Blue and Red.

They did not wish that he should--oh no, they were above that--but they felt sure that Eliza was very silly to dislike him as she did, and--well, between themselves, they found an infinite variety of things to say concerning him, sayings emphasised by sweet little chuckles of laughter, and not unfrequently wandering sighs. Sophia, at their age, had had many suitors, this was the family tradition, and lo, upon their own barren horizon there was only one pretty young man, and he only to be looked at, as it were, through the bars of a fence.

One day, when the blue merino frock was flitting about near the red one, the wearers of both being engaged in shaking up a feather bed, Red suddenly stopped her occupation in some excitement.

"Oh, Blue!" She paused a moment as if she were experiencing some interesting sensation; "oh, Blue, I think I've got toothache."

"No!" cried Blue, incredulously, but with hope.

Again over Red's face came the absorbed expression of introspection, and she carefully indented the outside of her pretty cheek several times with her forefinger.

"Yes, I'm sure I feel it. But no; there, it's gone again!"

"It's just the very way things have," said Blue, lamenting. "For two months we've quite wished we had toothache, and there was Tommy the other night just roaring with it."

"I shouldn't like a _roaring_ toothache," said Red, reflectively.

"Oh, but the worse it was," cried Blue, encouragingly, "the more necessary it would be--" She stopped and shook her head with a very roguish and significant glance at her sister.

"Mamma only put a bag of hot salt to Tommy's," said Red, prognosticating evil.