Chapter 10. Vacillation

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_ CHAPTER X. VACILLATION

"Evelyn, I distrust that man Lind."

The speaker was George Brand, who kept impatiently pacing up and down those rooms of his, while his friend, with a dreamy look on the pale and fine face, lay back in an easy-chair, and gazed out of the clear panes before him. It was night; the blinds had not been drawn; and the row of windows, framed by their scarlet curtains, seemed a series of dark-blue pictures, all throbbing with points of golden fire.

"Is there any one you do not distrust?" said Lord Evelyn, absently.

"I hope so. But with regard to Lind: I had distinctly to let him know he must not assume that I am mixed up in any of his schemes until I definitely say so. When, in answer to my vague proposal, he told me I had already pledged myself, I confess I was startled for a moment. Of course it was all very well for him afterward to speak of my declared sympathy, and of my promise to reveal nothing, as being quite enough, at least for the earlier stage. If that is so, you may easily acquire adherents. But either I join with a definite pledge, or not at all."

"I am inclined to think you had better not join," said Lord Evelyn, calmly.

After that there was silence; and Brand's companion lay and looked on the picture outside, that was so dark and solemn and still. In the midst of all that blaze of various and trembling lights was the unseen river--unseen but for the myriad reflections that showed the ripples of the water; then the far-reaching rows of golden stars, spanning the bridges, and marking out the long Embankment sweep beyond St. Thomas's Hospital. On the other side black masses of houses--all their commonplace detail lost in the mysterious shadow; and over them the silver crescent of the moon just strong enough to give an edge of white to a tall shot-tower. Then far away in the east, in the clear dark sky, the dim gray ghost of a dome; scarcely visible, and yet revealing its presence; the great dome of St. Paul's.

This beautiful, still scene--the silence was so intense that the footfall of a cab-horse crossing Waterloo Bridge could be faintly heard, as the eye followed the light slowly moving between the two rows of golden stars--seemed to possess but little interest for the owner of these rooms. For the moment he had lost altogether his habitual air of proud reserve.

"Evelyn," he said, abruptly, "was it not in these very rooms you insisted that, if the work was good, one need not be too scrupulous about one's associates?"

"I believe so," said the other, indifferently: he had almost lost hope of ever overcoming his friend's inveterate suspicion.

"Well," Brand said, "there is something in that. I believe in the work that Lind is engaged in, if I am doubtful about him. And if it pleases you or him to say that I have joined you merely because I express sympathy, and promise to say nothing, well and good. But you: you are more than that?"

The question somewhat startled Lord Evelyn; and his pale face flushed a little.

"Oh yes," he said; "of course. I--I cannot precisely explain to you."

"I understand. But, if I did really join, I should at least have you for a companion."

Lord Evelyn turned and regarded him.

"If you were to join, it might be that you and I should never see each other again in this world. Have I not told you?--Your first pledge is that of absolute obedience; you have no longer a right to your own life; you become a slave, that others may be free."

"And you would have me place myself in the power of a man like Lind?" Brand exclaimed.

"If it were necessary," said Lord Evelyn, "I should hold myself absolutely at the bidding of Lind; for I am convinced he is an honest man, as he is a man of great ability and unconquerable energy and will. But you would no more put yourself in Lind's power than in mine. Lind is a servant, like the rest of us. It is true he has in some ways a sort of quasi-independent position, which I don't quite understand; but as regards the Society that I have joined, and that you would join, he is a servant, as you would be a servant. But what is the use of talking? Your temperament isn't fitted for this kind of work."

"I want to see my way clear," Brand said, almost to himself.

"Ah, that is just it; whereas, you must go blindfold."

Thereafter again silence. The moon had risen higher now; and the paths in the Embankment gardens just below them had grown gray in the clearer light. Lord Evelyn lay and watched the light of a hansom that was rattling along by the side of the river.

"Do you remember," said Brand, with a smile, "your repeating some verses here one night; and my suspecting you had borrowed the inspiration somewhere? My boy, I have found you out. What I guessed was true. I made bold to ask Miss Lind to read, that evening I came up with them from Dover."

"I know it," said Lord Evelyn, quietly.

"You have seen her, then?" was the quick question.

"No; she wrote to me."

"Oh, she writes to you?" the other said.

"Well, you see, I did not know her father had gone abroad, and I called. As a rule, she sees no one while her father is away; on the other hand, she will not say she is not at home if she is at home. So she wrote me a note of apology for refusing to see me; and in it she told me you had been very kind to them, and how she had tried to read, and had read very badly, because she feared your criticism--"

"I never heard anything like it!" Brand said; and then he corrected himself. "Well, yes, I have; I have heard you, Evelyn. You have been an admirable pupil."

"Now when I think of it," said his friend, putting his hand in his breast-pocket, "this letter is mostly about you, Brand. Let me see if there is anything in it you may not see. No; it is all very nice and friendly."

He was about to hand over the letter, when he stopped.

"I do believe," he said, looking at Brand, "that you are capable of thinking Natalie wrote this letter on purpose you should see it."

"Then you do me a great injustice," Brand said, without anger. "And you do her a great injustice. I do not think it needs any profound judge of character to see what that girl is."

"For that is one thing I could never forgive you, Brand."

"What?"

"If you were to suspect Natalie Lind."

This was no private and confidential communication that passed into Brand's hand, but a frank, gossiping, sisterly note, stretching out beyond its initial purpose. And there was no doubt at all that it was mostly about Brand himself; and the reader grew red as he went on. He had been so kind to them at Dover; and so interested in her papa's work; and so anxious to be of service and in sympathy with them. And then she spoke as if he were definitely pledged to them; and how proud she was to have another added to the list of her friends. George Brand's face was as red as his beard when he folded up the letter. He did not immediately return it.

"What a wonderful woman that is!" said he, after a time. "I did not think it would be left for a foreigner to teach me to believe in England."

Lord Evelyn looked up.

"Oh," Brand said, instantly, "I know what you would ask: 'What is my belief worth?' 'How much do I sympathize?' Well, I can give you a plain answer: a shilling in the pound income-tax. If England is this stronghold of the liberties of Europe--if it is her business to be the lamp-bearer of freedom--if she must keep her shores inviolate as the refuge of those who are oppressed and persecuted, well, then, I would pay a shilling income-tax, or double that, treble that, to give her a navy that would sweep the seas. For a big army there is neither population, nor sustenance, nor room; but I would give her such a navy as would let her put the world to defiance."

"I wish Natalie would teach you to believe in a few other things while she is about it," said his friend, with a slight and rather sad smile.

"For example?"

"In human nature a little bit, for example. In the possibility of a woman being something else than a drawing-room peacock, or worse. Do you think she could make you believe that it is possible for a woman to be noble-minded, unselfish, truth-speaking, modest, and loyal-hearted?"

"I presume you are describing Natalie Lind herself."

"Oh," said his friend, with a quick surprise, "then you admit there may be an exception, after all? You do not condemn the whole race of them now, as being incapable of even understanding what frank dealing is, or honor, or justice, or anything beyond their own vain and selfish caprices?"

George Brand went to the window.

"Perhaps," said he, "my experience of women has been unfortunate, unusual. I have not had much chance, especially of late years, of studying them in their quiet domestic spheres. But otherwise I suppose my experience is not unusual. Every man begins his life, in his salad days, by believing the world to be a very fine thing, and women particularly to be very wonderful creatures--angels, in short, of goodness, and mercy, and truth, and all the rest of it. Then, judging by what I have seen and heard, I should say that about nineteen men out of twenty get a regular facer--just at the most sensitive period of their life; and then they suddenly believe that women are devils, and the world a delusion. It is bad logic; but they are not in a mood for reason. By-and-by the process of recovery begins: with some short, with others long. But the spring-time of belief, and hope, and rejoicing--I doubt whether that ever comes back."

He spoke without any bitterness. If the facts of the world were so, they had to be accepted.

"I swallowed my dose of experience a good many years ago," he continued, "but I haven't got it out of my blood yet. However, I will admit to you the possibility of there being a few women like Natalie Lind."

"Well, this is better, at all events," Lord Evelyn said, cheerfully.

"Beauty, of course, is a dazzling and dangerous thing," Brand said; "for a man always wants to believe that fine eyes and a sweet voice have a sweet soul behind them. And very often he finds behind them something in the shape of a soul that a dog or a cat would be ashamed to own. But as for Natalie Lind, I don't think one can be deceived. She shows too much. She vibrates too quickly--too inadvertently--to little chance touches. I did suspect her, I will confess. I thought she was hired to play the part of decoy. But I had not seen her for ten minutes before I was convinced she was playing no part at all."

"But goodness gracious, Brand, what are we coming to?" Lord Evelyn said, with a laugh. "What! We already believe in England, and patriotism, and the love of freedom? And we are prepared to admit that there is one woman--positively, in the world, one woman--who is not a cheat and a selfish coquette? Why, where are we to end?"

"I don't think I said only one woman," Brand replied, quite good-naturedly; and then he added, with a smile, "You ask where we are to end. Suppose I were to accept your new religion, Evelyn? Would that please you? And would it please her, too?"

"Ah!" said his companion, looking up with a quick glance of pleasure. But he would argue no more.

"Perhaps I have been too suspicious. It is a habit; I have had to look after myself pretty much through the world; and I don't overvalue the honesty of people I don't know. But when I once set my hand to the work, I am not likely to draw back."

"You could be of so much more value to them than I can," said Lord Evelyn, wistfully. "I don't suppose you spend more than half of your income."

"Oh, as to that," said Brand, at once, "that is a very different matter. If they like to take myself and what I can do, well and good; money is a very different thing."

His companion raised himself in his chair; and there was surprise on his face.

"How can you help them so well as with your money?" he cried. "Why, it is the very thing they want most."

"Oh, indeed!" said Brand, coldly. "You see, Evelyn, my father was a business man; and I may have inherited a commercial way of looking at things. If I were to give away a lot of money to unknown people, for unknown purposes, I should say that I was being duped, and that they were putting the money in their own pocket."

"My dear fellow!" Lord Evelyn protested; "the need of money is most urgent. There are printing-presses to be kept going; agents to be paid; police-spies to be bribed--there is an enormous work to be done, and money must be spent."

"All the same," said Brand, who was invariably most resolved when he was most quiet in his manner, "I shall prefer not running the chance of being duped in that direction. Besides, I am bound in honor not to do anything of the kind. I can fling myself away--this is my own lookout; and my life, or the way I spend it, is not of great consequence to me. But my father's property, if anything happens to me, ought to go intact to my sister's boys, to whom, indeed, I have left it by will. I will say to Lind, 'Is it myself or my money that is wanted: you must choose.'"

"The question would be an insult."

"Oh, do you think so? Very well; I will not ask it. But that is the understanding." Then he added, more lightly, "Why, would you have the Pilgrim start with his pocket full of sovereigns? His staff and his wallet are all he is entitled to. And when one is going to make a big plunge, shouldn't one strip?"

There was no answer; for Lord Evelyn's quick ear had caught the sound of wheels in the adjacent street.

"There is my trap," he said, looking at his watch as he rose.

Waters brought the young man his coat, and then went out to light him down-stairs.

"Good-night, Brand. Glad to see you are getting into a wholesomer frame of mind. I shall tell Natalie you are now prepared to admit that there is in the world at least one woman who is not a cheat."

"I hope you will not utter a word to Miss Lind of any of the nonsense we have been talking," said Brand, hastily, and with his face grown red.

"All right. By-the-way, when are you coming up to see the girls?"

"To-morrow afternoon: will that do?"

"Very well; I shall wait in."

"Let me see if I remember the order aright," said Brand, holding up his fingers and counting. "Rosalys, Blanche, Ermentrude, Agnes, Jane, Frances, Geraldine: correct?"

"Quite. I think their mother must forget at times. Well, good-night."

"Good-night--good-night!"

Brand returned to the empty room, and threw wide open one of the windows. The air was singularly mild for a night in March; but he had been careful of his friend. Then he dropped into an easy-chair, and opened a letter.

It was the letter from Natalie Lind, which he had held in his hand ever since, eagerly hoping that Evelyn would forget it--as, in fact, he had done. And now with what a strange interest he read and re-read it; and weighed all its phrases; and tried to picture her as she wrote these lines; and studied even the peculiarities of the handwriting. There was a quaint, foreign look here and there--the capital B, for example, was written in German fashion; and that letter occurred a good many times. It was Mr. Brand, and Mr. Brand, over and over again--in this friendly and frank gossip, which had all the brightness of a chat over a new acquaintance who interests one. He turned to the signature. "_Your friend, Natalie._"

Then he walked up and down, slowly and thoughtfully; but ever and again he would turn to the letter to see that he had quite accurately remembered what she had said about the delight of the sail from Calais, and the beautiful flowers at Dover and her gladness at the prospect of their having this new associate and friend. Then the handwriting again. The second stroke of the N in her name had a little notch at the top--German fashion. It looked a pretty name, as she wrote it.

Then he went to the window, and leaned on the brass bar, and looked out on the dark and sleeping world, with its countless golden points of fire. He remained there a long time, thinking--of the past, in which he had fancied his life was buried; of the present, with its bewildering uncertainties; of the future, with its fascinating dreams. There might be a future for him, then, after all; and hope; and the joy of companionship? Surely that letter meant at least so much.

But then the boundlessness, the eager impatience, of human wishes! Farther and farther, as he leaned and looked out, without seeing much of the wonderful spectacle before him, went his thoughts and eager hopes and desires. Companionship; but with whom? And might not the spring-time of life come back again, as it was now coming back to the world in the sweet new air that had begun to blow from the South? And what message did the soft night-wind bring him but the name of Natalie? And Natalie was written in the clear and shining heavens, in letters of fire and joy; and the river spoke of Natalie; and the darkness murmured Natalie.

But his heart, whispering to him--there, in the silence of the night, in the time when dreams abound, and visions of what may be--his heart, whispering to him, said--"Natalushka!" _

Read next: Chapter 11. A Commission

Read previous: Chapter 9. A Night In Venice

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