'Indeed!' Mr. Audley caught a deprecating look from Fernando. 'Do you come from his father?'
'Well-yes and no. His father is still in the Oregon; but he and I have always been one-and opening the boy's letters, and finding him ready to move, I thought, as I had business in England, I'd come and fetch him, and just settle any claim the fellow at yonder hotel may have cheek enough to set up, since Fernan was green enough to let it out.'
'May I ask if you have any authority from his father?'
'Authority! Bless you! William will be glad to see his boy; we don't go by authority between brothers.'
'Because,' continued Mr. Audley, 'I heard from your brother that he wished Fernando to remain with me to receive an English education.'
'All sentiment and stuff! He knew better before we had sailed! An English squire in this wretched old country, forsooth! when the new republic is before him! No, no, Mr. Audley, I'll be open with you. I saw what you were up to when I got your letter, and Fernan-Got his lesson very well, he had. And when I came down, a friend in London gave me another hint. It won't do, I can assure you. That style of thing is all very well for you spruce parsons of good family, as you call it in the old country; but we are not going to have a rising young fellow like this, with a prospect of what would buy out all your squires and baronets in the old country, beslobbered and befooled with a lot of Puseyite cant. You've had your turn of him; it is time he should come and be a man again.'
Mr. Audley was dizzy with consternation. Fernando was no child. He was full sixteen, and he was so far recovered that his health formed no reason for detaining him. If he chose to go with his uncle, he must. If not-what then? He looked at Fernando, who sat uneasily.
'You hear what your uncle says?' he asked.
'I told him,' said Fernando, 'I must wait for a fortnight.' He spoke with eyes cast down, but not irresolutely.
His uncle broke out-He knew what that meant; it was only that he might be flattered by the Bishop and all the ladies, and made a greater fool of than ever. No, no, he must be out again by May, and he should just have time to take Fernan to one of the gay boarding- houses at Saratoga, and leave him there to enjoy himself.
'I have letters from my father,' said Fernando, looking up to Mr. Audley, 'before he went to Oregon. He said nothing.'
'Do you wish to stay?' said Mr. Audley, feeling that all depended on that, and trying to hide the whirl of anxiety and disappointment he felt.
The answer was not what he expected. Fernando sat upright in his chair, looked up to him and then at his uncle, and said low but resolutely, 'I will stay.'
'Then you shall stay,' said Mr. Audley.
'You have worked upon him, I see, sir, with your old-world prejudiced superstition,' said Alfred Travis, evidently under the delusion that he was keeping his temper. 'A proper fool my brother was to leave him to you. But you do it at your peril. I shall see if there's power even in this old country to keep a boy from his own relations. You'll see me again, Fernan. You had better make ready.'
The words were not unaccompanied with expletives such as had never been personally uttered to Charles Audley before, and that brought the hot colour to his cheek. When he looked round, Fernando's face was covered with his hands. 'Oh! Mr. Audley,' he cried, as his uncle hastily shut the door, 'is he going to send for the police?'
'I do not believe he can do any such thing,' said Mr. Audley, seeing that Fernando was in great nervous agitation. 'I have authority from your father, he has none; and you are old enough to make your own decision. You really mean and wish to stay?' he added.
'I told him so from the first,' said Fernando.
'Then he has no power to force you away.'
Fernando was silent. Then he said, 'If I could have gone after my Baptism.'
'Would you have wished that?' said Mr. Audley, somewhat disappointed.
The tears were now on the long black lashes.
'Oh, don't think me ungrateful, or-But this English life does come over me as intolerably dull and slow. No life nor go in it. Sometimes I feel sick of it; and going back to books and all, after what I have been used to. If my uncle could wait for my Baptism, or,' more hesitating, 'if I could be baptized at once. Men do lead Christian lives out there. I would try to keep from evil, Mr. Audley. I see your face! Is this another temptation of the devil?'
'I think it is an attempt of his,' said Mr. Audley, sadly. 'Even here you have not been able to abstain entirely from giving way to your old passion, when you had little temptation, and felt your honour bound. What will it be when you have comparatively no restraint?'
'I am resolved not to go unbaptized,' said Fernando. 'I said so from the first, but he will not wait! Yet if my father sends for me, I must go.'
'Then it will be your duty, and you will have more right to look for help. Besides, a summons from your father could not come for three or four months, and in that time you would have had time to gain something in Christian practice and training.'
'Oh, there is the bell! Must you go, Mr. Audley? He will come back!'
'I wish I could stay, but Smith is gone to Dearport, and I do not know whether the Rector is in. Besides, this must be your own doing, Fernan, not mine. I shall pray for you, that you well know. Pray for yourself, for this is a real crisis of life. God bless you, my dear boy.' He laid his hand on the head, and Fernando looked up gratefully, then said, 'You never did that before. May Lance come to me, if he has not gone?'
'I will call him,' said Mr. Audley, seeing that he really dreaded being alone. The little boy was on the stairs with something in his hand. 'Go in to Fernan,' he was told, 'he wants you. What have you got there?'
'This queer drawing. Cherry found it in an old portfolio, and has been copying it.'
It was Ketzsch's outline of the chess-player, and it almost startled Mr. Audley by its appropriateness. He went out to Evensong, and never was more glad to get back to reinforce the feeble garrison.
Lance opened the front door to him. 'I'm so glad you are come!' he said. 'Mr. Bruce is there.'
'Not the uncle?'
'No, only Mr. Bruce.'
Mr. Bruce was a lawyer, and a very respectable man, in whom Mr. Audley felt confidence. He rose at the clergyman's entrance, and asked to speak to him in another room, so he was taken into the little back dining-room, and began-'This is a very unpleasant business, Mr. Audley; this gentleman is very much annoyed, and persuaded that he has a right to carry off his nephew; but as I told him, it all turns upon the father's expressions. Have you any written authority from him?'
Mr. Audley had more than one letter, thanking him, and expressing full satisfaction in the proposed arrangements for Fernando; and this Mr. Bruce thought was full justification, together with the youth's own decided wishes. The words were likewise clear, by which William Travis had given consent to his son's Baptism, but there was no witness of them. Mr. Bruce explained that Alfred Travis, who seemed to regard Fernando as the common property of the brothers, had come to him in what he gently termed 'a great state of excitement,' complaining of a Puseyite plot. He had evidently taken umbrage at the tone of the letters he had opened for his brother, and had been further prejudiced by some Dearport timber merchant he had met at Liverpool, who had told him how the parson had got hold of his nephew, and related a farrago of gossip about St. Oswald's. He was furious at the opposition, and could not understand that law in the old country was powerless in this case, because he was neither father nor guardian. In fact he seemed to be master of his brother; and Mr. Bruce told Mr. Audley that it was quite to be considered whether though law was on his side now, the father might not be brought over to the brother's side, be very angry at the detention of the boy, and refuse the payment, which, while he was in America, could not be forced from him. Of that Mr. Audley could happily afford to run the risk; and Mr. Bruce said he had also set before the young gentleman that he might have to suffer much displeasure from his father for his present refusal, although his right to make it was incontestable. To this Fernando had likewise made up his mind; and Mr. Bruce, who had never seen him before, thought he looked utterly unfit for a long journey and sea voyage, so that the uncle had taken nothing by his application to the law.