"So Margaret does not know?" he said.
"No, Mary has been so very good;" and she told what had passed.
"Well done, Mary, I must tell her so. She is a good girl on a pinch, you see!"
"And we don't speak of it now? Or will it hurt Margaret more to think we keep things from her?"
"That is the worst risk of the two. I have seen great harm done in that way. Mention it, but without seeming to make too much of it."
"Won't you, papa?"
"You had better--it will seem of less importance. I think nothing of it myself."
Nevertheless, Ethel saw that he could not trust himself to broach the subject to Margaret.
"How was the Larkins' baby?"
"Doing better. What have you done with Spencer?"
"I put him into Richard's room. The children were eating him up! He is so kind to them."
"Ay! I say, Ethel, that was a happy consequence of your coming home with me."
"What a delightful person he is!"
"Is he not? A true knight errant, as he always was! I could not tell you what I owed to him as a boy--all my life, I may say. Ethel," he added suddenly: "we must do our best to make him happy here. I know it now--I never guessed it then, but one is very hard and selfish when one is happy--"
"What do you mean, papa?"
"I see it now," continued Dr. May incoherently; "the cause of his wandering life--advantages thrown aside. He! the most worthy. Things I little heeded at the time have come back on me! I understand why he banished himself!"
"Why?" asked Ethel bewildered.
"She never had an idea of it; but I might have guessed from what fell from him unconsciously, for not a word would he have said--nor did he say, to show how he sacrificed himself!"
"Who was it? Aunt Flora?" said Ethel, beginning to collect his meaning.
"No, Ethel, it was your own dear mother! You will think this another romantic fancy of mine, but I am sure of it."
"So am I," said Ethel.
"How--what? Ah! I remembered after we parted that he might know nothing--"
"He asked me," said Ethel.
"And how did he bear it?"
Ethel told, and the tears filled her father's eyes.
"It was wrong and cruel in me to bring him home unprepared! and then to leave it to you. I always forget other people's feelings. Poor Spencer! And now, Ethel, you see what manner of man we have here, and how we ought to treat him."
"Indeed I do!"
"The most unselfish--the most self-sacrificing--" continued Dr. May. "And to see what it all turned on! I happened to have this place open to me--the very cause, perhaps, of my having taken things easy-- and so the old Professor threw opportunities in my way; while Aubrey Spencer, with every recommendation that man could have, was set aside, and exiled himself, leaving the station, and all he might so easily have gained. Ah, Ethel, Sir Matthew Fleet never came near him in ability. But not one word to interfere with me would he say, and- -how I have longed to meet him again, after parting in my selfish, unfeeling gladness; and now I have nothing to do for him, but show him how little I was to be trusted with her."
Ethel never knew how to deal with these occasional bursts of grief, but she said that she thought Dr. Spencer was very much pleased to have met with him, and delighted with the children.
"Ah! well, you are her children," said Dr. May, with his hand on Ethel's shoulder.
So they went downstairs, and found Mary making tea; and Margaret, fearing Dr. Spencer was overwhelmed with his young admirers--for Aubrey and Gertrude were one on each knee, and Blanche standing beside him, inflicting on him a catalogue of the names and ages of all the eleven.
"Ethel has introduced you, I see," said Dr. May.
"Ay, I assure you, it was an alarming introduction. No sooner do I enter your garden, than I hear that I am in the midst of the Forty Thieves. I find a young lady putting the world to death, after the fashion of Hamlet--and, looking about to find what I have lost, I find this urchin has robbed me of my name--a property I supposed was always left to unfortunate travellers, however small they might be chopped themselves."
"Well, Aubrey boy, will you make restitution?"
"It is my name," said Aubrey positively; for, as his father added, "He is not without dread of the threat being fulfilled, and himself left to be that Anon who, Blanche says, writes so much poetry."
Aubrey privately went to Ethel, to ask her if this were possible; and she had to reassure him, by telling him that they were "only in fun."
It was fun with a much deeper current though; for Dr. Spencer was saying, with a smile, between gratification and sadness, "I did not think my name would have been remembered here so long."
"We had used up mine, and the grandfathers', and the uncles', and began to think we might look a little further a-field," said Dr. May. "If I had only known where you were, I would have asked you to be the varlet's godfather; but I was much afraid you were nowhere in the land of the living."
"I have but one godson, and he is coffee-coloured! I ought to have written; but, you see, for seven years I thought I was coming home."
Aubrey had recovered sufficiently to observe to Blanche, "That was almost as bad as Ulysses," which, being overheard and repeated, led to the information that he was Ethel's pupil, whereupon Dr. Spencer began to inquire after the school, and to exclaim at his friend for having deserted it in the person of Tom. Dr. May looked convicted, but said it was all Norman's fault; and Dr. Spencer, shaking his head at Blanche, opined that the young gentleman was a great innovater, and that he was sure he was at the bottom of the pulling down the Market Cross, and the stopping up Randall's Alley--iniquities of the "nasty people," of which she already had made him aware.
"Poor Norman, he suffered enough anent Randall's Alley," said Dr. May; "but as to the Market Cross, that came down a year before he was born."
"It was the Town Council!" said Ethel.
"One of the ordinary stultifications of Town Councils?"
"Take care, Spencer," said Dr. May. "I am a Town Council man my- self--"
"You, Dick!" and he turned with a start of astonishment, and went into a fit of laughing, re-echoed by all the young ones, who were especially tickled by hearing, from another, the abbreviation that had, hitherto, only lived in the favourite expletive, "As sure as my name is Dick May."
"Of course," said Dr. May. "'Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? One that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him!'"
His friend laughed the more, and they betook themselves to the College stories, of which the quotation from Dogberry seemed to have reminded them.
There was something curious and affecting in their manner to each other. Often it was the easy bantering familiarity of the two youths they had once been together, with somewhat of elder brotherhood on Dr. Spencer's side--and of looking up on Dr. May's--and just as they had recurred to these terms, some allusion would bring back to Dr. Spencer, that the heedless, high-spirited "Dick," whom he had always had much ado to keep out of scrapes, was a householder, a man of weight and influence; a light which would at first strike him as most ludicrous, and then mirth would end in a sigh, for there was yet another aspect! After having thought of him so long as the happy husband of Margaret Mackenzie, he found her place vacant, and the trace of deep grief apparent on the countenance, once so gay--the oppression of anxiety marked on the brow, formerly so joyous, the merriment almost more touching than gravity would have been, for the former nature seemed rather shattered than altered. In merging towards this side, there was a tender respect in Dr. Spencer's manner that was most beautiful, though this evening such subjects were scrupulously kept at the utmost distance, by the constant interchange of new and old jokes and stories.
Only when bed-time had come, and Margaret had been carried off--did a silence fall on the two friends, unbroken till Dr. May rose and proposed going upstairs. When he gave his hand to wish good-night, Dr. Spencer held it this time most carefully, and said, "Oh, May! I did not expect this!"