However, he never talked freely to Mr. Audley. He had bitterly resented that gentleman's interference, one day when he was peremptorily commanding the nurse to place him in a position that had been forbidden, and the endeavour to control him had made him fearfully angry. There was a stormy outbreak of violent language, only checked by a severe rebuke, for which he did not forgive the Curate; he was coldly civil, and accepted the attentions he could not dispense with in a grave formal manner that would have been sulky in an English lad, but had something of the dreary grandeur of the Spanish Don from that dark lordly visage, and made Mr. Audley half provoked, half pitying, speak of him always as his Cacique. He only expanded a little even to Lance, though the little boy waited on him assiduously, chattering about school doings, illustrating them on a slate, singing to him, acting Blondin, exhibiting whatever he could lay his hands on, including the twins, whom he bore down one after the other, to the great wrath of Sibby, not to say of little Stella herself, while Theodore took the exhibition with perfect serenity.
As to Felix, he was, as Lance said, the subject of the sick lad's fervent admiration. Perhaps the open, fair, cheerful, though grave countenance, fresh complexion, and strong, steadfast, upright bearing had something to do with the strange adoration that in his silent way Fernando paid to the youth, who looked in from time to time, bringing a sort of air of refreshment with his good-natured shy smile, even when he least knew what to say. Or else it was little Lance's fervent affection for Felix which had conduced to the erection of the elder brother into the idol of Fernando's fancy; and his briefest visit was the event of the long autumnal days spent in the uncurtained iron bed in the corner of the low room. The worship, silent though it was, was manifest enough to become embarrassing and ridiculous to the subject of it, whose sense of duty and compassion was always at war with his reluctance to expose himself to it. Not another word passed on any religious subject. Mr. Audley was not forgiven enough to venture on the attempt; the Rector was shy and frightened about it, and could make no beginning; and Mr. Mowbray Smith, who found great fault with them for their neglect, had been fairly stared down by the great black eyes, which, when the heavy lids were uplifted, proved to be of an immense size and force; and Felix was so sure that it could not be his business while three clergymen were going in and out that he had never done more than describe the weather, or retail any fresh bit of London news that had come down to the office.
At last, however, one November day, he found Fernando sitting up in bed, and Lance, perched on the table, talking so earnestly as not to perceive his entrance, until Fernando broke upon his words: 'There! it's no use!'
'Yes, it is,' cried Lance, jumping down. 'O Fee, I am glad you are come; I want you to tell him the rights of it.'
'The rights of what, Lance?'
'Tell him that it is all the devil's doing, and the men he has got on his side; and that it was the very thing our Saviour came for to set us free, only everybody won't,' said Lance clinging to his brother's hand and looking up in his face.
'That's about right, Lance,' said Felix, 'but I don't quite know what you are talking about.'
'Just this,' said Fernando. 'Lance goes on about God being merciful and good and powerful-Almighty, as he says; but whatever women may tell a little chap like that, nobody can think so that has seen the things I have, down in the West, with my own eyes.'
'Felix!' cried Lance, 'say it. You know and believe just as I do, as everybody good does, men and all.'
'Yes, indeed!' said Felix with all his heart.
'Then tell me how it can be,' said Fernando.
Felix stood startled and perplexed, feeling the awful magnitude and importance of the question, but also feeling his own incompetence to deal with it; and likewise that Wilmet was keeping the tea waiting for him. He much wished to say, 'Keep it for Mr. Audley,' but he feared to choke the dawning of faith, and he likewise feared the appearance of hesitation.
'Nobody can really explain it,' he said, 'but that's no wonder. One cannot explain a thunderstorm, but one knows that it is.'
'That's electricity,' said Fernando.
'And what's electricity?'
'A fluid that-'
'Yes; that's another word. But you can't get any farther. God made electricity, or whatever it is, and when you talk about explaining it, you only get to something that is. You know it is, and you can't get any farther,' he repeated.
'Well, that's true; though science goes beyond you in America.'
'But no searching finds out all about God!' said Felix reverently. 'All we know is that He is so infinitely great and wise, that of course we cannot understand why all He does is right, any more than a private soldier understands his general's orders.'
'And you-you,' said Fernando, 'are content to say you don't understand.'
'Why not?' said Felix.
There was a silence. Fernando seemed to be thinking; Lance gazed from one to the other, as if disappointed that his brother was not more explicit.
'And how do you know it is true?' added Fernando. 'I mean, what Lance has been telling me! What makes you sure of it, if you are?'
'If I am !' cried Felix, startled into indignation. 'To be sure I am!'
'But how?'
'I know it!' said Felix.
'How?'
'The Bible!' gasped Lance impatiently.
'Ay; so you have said for ever,' broke in Fernando; 'but what authenticates that?'
'The whole course of history,' said Felix. 'There is a great chain of evidence, I know, but I never got it up. I can't tell it you, Fernando, I never wanted it, never even tried to think about the proofs. It is all too sure.'
'But wouldn't a Mahometan say that?' said Fernando.
'If he did, look at the Life of our Lord and of Mahomet together, and see which must be the true prophet-the Way, the Life, the Truth.'
'That one could do,' said Fernando thoughtfully. 'I say' as Felix made a movement as if he thought the subject concluded, 'I want to know one thing more. Lance says it is believing all this that makes you-any one I mean-good.'
'I don't know what else should,' said Felix, smiling a little; the question seemed to him so absurd.
'Is it really what makes you go and slave away at that old boss's of yours?'
'Why, that's necessity and my duty,' said Felix.
'And is it what makes this little coon come and spend all his play- hours on a poor fellow with a broken leg? I've been at many schools, and never saw the fellow who would do that.'
'Oh! you are such fun!' cried Lance.
'All that is right comes from God first and last,' said Felix gravely.
'And you-you that are no child-you believe all that Lance tells me you do, and think it makes you what you are!'
'I believe it; yes, of course. And believing it should make me much better than I am! I hope it will in time.'
'Ah!' sighed Fernando. 'I never heard anything like it since my father said he'd take the cow-hide to poor old Diego, if he caught him teaching me nigger-cant.'
They left him.
'Poor fellow!' sighed Felix; 'what have you been telling him, Lance?'
'Oh, I don't know; only why things were good and bad,' was Lance's lucid answer; and he was then intent on detailing the stories he had heard from Fernando. He had been in the worst days of Southern slavery ere its extinction, on the skirts of the deadly warfare with the Red Indians; and the poor lad had really known of horrors that curdled the blood of Wilmet and Geraldine, and made the latter lie awake or dream dreadful dreams all night.