One day of expectation, in which he was the most calm and resolute of us, one anxious day when they sent me to Miss Woolmer, until Harold came, thankful and hopeful to fetch me, a few more of nursing accepted with touching gratitude, and he was soon downstairs again, a hale old man, though nearly seventy, but more than ever bent on his retreat to La Trappe. It distressed us much. He seemed so much to enjoy intelligent talk with Miss Woolmer and the Yollands; he so delighted in books, and took such fresh interest in all, whether mechanical or moral, that was doing at the Hydriots--of which, by- the-by, as first inventor, the company had contrived, at Harold's suggestion, to make him a shareholder to an extent that would cover all his modest needs, I could not think how he would bear the change.
"My dear young lady," he said to me, when I tried to persuade him out of writing the first letter, "you forget how much I have of sin upon me. Can years of negation of faith, or the ruin of four young lives, and I know not of how many more, be repented of at ease in your pleasant town, amid the amiable cares you young people are good enough to lavish on the old man?"
I made some foolish answer about his having meant all for good and noble purposes, but he shook his head.
"Error, my dear madam, error excusable, perhaps, in one whose country has been destroyed. I see, now that I have returned, after years alone with my God, that the work I tried to precipitate was one of patience. The fire from heaven must first illuminate the soul, then the spirit, and then the bonds will be loosed of themselves; otherwise we do but pluck them asunder to set maniacs free to rush into the gulf. And as to my influence on my two pupils, your brothers, I see now that what began in filial rebellion and disobedience could never end well. I bless God that I have been permitted to see, in the next generation, the true hero and reformer I ought to have made of my Ambrose. Ah! Ambrose, Ambrose! noble young spirit, would that any tears and penance of mine would expiate the shipwreck to which I led thee!" and he burst into tears.
He had, of course, seen the Roman Catholic priest several times before encountering the danger of the operation, and was a thoroughly devout penitent, but of his old Liberalism he retained the intense benevolence that made the improvements at the potteries a great delight to him, likewise the historical breadth of understanding that prevented his thinking us all un-Catholic and unsafe.
It was a great blessing that Harold was not held back but rather aided and stimulated by the example of the man to whom he most looked up; but with his characteristic silence, it was long before I found that, having felt, beside his mother's death-bed, how far his spiritual wants had outgrown me, he had carried them to Ben Yolland, though the old morning habit remained unbroken, and he always came to the little room I had made like my old one.
Ben Yolland had become more entirely chaplain to the Hydriots. Those two brothers lived together in a curious way at what we all still called the "Dragon's Head," each with his own sitting-room and one in common, one fitted as a clergyman's study, the other more like a surgery; for though George had given up his public practice since he had been manager of the works, he still attended all the workpeople and their families, only making them pay for their medicines "when it was good for them."
Thus the care of the soul and bodies of the Hydriots was divided between the two, and they seemed to work in concert, although George showed no symptom of change of opinions, never saying anything openly to discredit his brother's principles, nay, viewing them as wholesome restraints for those who were not too scientific to accept them, and even going to church when he had nothing else to do, but by preference looking up his patients on a Sunday. He viewed everything, from religion to vice, as the outcome of certain states of brain, nerves, and health; and so far from being influenced by the example of Prometesky, regarded him as a proof of his own theory, and talked of the Slavonic temperament returning to its normal forms as the vigour of life departed.
Nevertheless, he did not seem to do harm to the workpeople. Drunkenness was at least somewhat restrained, though far from conquered, and the general spirit of the people was wonderful, compared with those of other factories. Plans were under discussion for a mission chapel, and the people themselves were thoroughly anxious for it.
Lord Erymanth returning, kindly came to call on me in my new house, and as I was out of the drawing-room at the time, he had ten minutes' conversation with the gentleman whom he found reading at the window, and was so much pleased with him that when making the tour of our small domain, he said, "You did not introduce me, Lucy. Is that an Australian acquaintance of Harold Alison's? I did not expect such high cultivation."
"An Australian acquaintance, yes," said I, "and also a Polish count."
"Prometesky!"
"Prometesky," said I, to whom the name had begun to sound historical. "I did not know you did not recognise him."
I was afraid my old friend would be angry with me, but he stood still and said, "I never saw him except at his trial. I can understand now the fascination he was said to have possessed. I could not conscientiously assist your nephew in his recall, but I highly honour the generous perseverance with which he has effected it; and I am happy to acknowledge that the subject is worthy of his enthusiasm. Animosity may be laid aside now, and you may tell Mr. Harold Alison that I heartily congratulate him."
"And he--Count Stanislas we call him--sees now that he was mistaken," I said.
"Does he? That is the best of the higher stamp of men, my dear. They know when they are wrong, and own it. In fact, that's the greatest difference between men. The feeble and self-opinionated never acknowledge an error, but the truly sincere can confess and retrieve their hallucinations and prejudices. Well, I am glad to have seen Prometesky, and to be disabused of aome ideas respecting him."
Count Stanislas, on the other hand, received me with, "So that is Erymanth! The tyrant, against whom we raged, proves a charitable, benevolent, prosy old gentleman. How many illusions a few decades dispel, and how much hatred one wastes!"
Lord Erymanth had told me that his sister would soon be at home, and in September I was surprised by a call from Dermot. "Yes, I'm at Arked," he said, "Killy Marey is full of Dublin workmen. My uncle has undertaken to make it habitable for me, like an old brick, and, in the meantime, there's not a room fit to smoke or sleep in, so I'm come home like a dutiful son."
"Then your mother is come?"
"Oh yes; she is come for six weeks, and then she and the St. Glears are to join company and winter at Rome."
"At Rome?"
"Prevention, you see," said Dermot, with a twinkle in his eye, as if he were not very uneasy. "The question is whether it is in time. She will have Piggy's attentions at Christmas. He is to come out for the vacation."
Then he further told me that his mother had brought home with her a Mrs. Sandford with a daughter, heiress to L60,000, and to a newly- bought estate in Surrey, and newly-built house "of the most desirable description," he added, shrugging his shoulders.
"And what sort of a young lady is she?"
"Oh, very desirable, too, I suppose."
"But what is she like?"
"Like? Oh, like other people," and he whistled a little, seeming relieved when "Count Stanislas" came in, and soon after going to hunt up Harry at the Hydriot works.
It made me uncomfortable; it was so evidently another attempt on his mother's part to secure a rich home for him in England, and his tone did not at all reassure me that, with his easy temper, he would not drift into the arrangement without his heart in it. "Why should I be so vexed about it? It might be very good for him," said I to myself.
No, his heart was not in it, for he came back with Harold, and lingered over our fire beyond all reasonable time, talking amusing random stuff, till he had left himself only ten minutes to ride home in to dinner.