What an afternoon it was for Esther!

  ‘Ah!’ she said at last, ‘it’s good to hear all this! My aunt, you should know, is narrow and too religious; she cannot understand an artist’s life. It does not frighten me,’ she added grandly; ‘I am an artist’s daughter.’

  With that speech, Dick consoled himself for his imposture; she was not deceived so grossly after all; and then if a fraud, was not the fraud piety itself? — and what could be more obligatory than to keep alive in the heart of a daughter that filial trust and honour which, even although misplaced, became her like a jewel of the mind? There might be another thought, a shade of cowardice, a selfish desire to please; poor Dick was merely human; and what would you have had him do?

  CHAPTER IV — ESTHER ON THE FILIAL RELATION

  A month later Dick and Esther met at the stile beside the cross roads; had there been any one to see them but the birds and summer insects, it would have been remarked that they met after a different fashion from the day before. Dick took her in his arms, and their lips were set together for a long while. Then he held her at arm’s-length, and they looked straight into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Esther!’ he said; you should have heard his voice!

  ‘Dick!’ said she.

  ‘My darling!’

  It was some time before they started for their walk; he kept an arm about her, and their sides were close together as they walked; the sun, the birds, the west wind running among the trees, a pressure, a look, the grasp tightening round a single finger, these things stood them in lieu of thought and filled their hearts with joy. The path they were following led them through a wood of pine-trees carpeted with heather and blue-berry, and upon this pleasant carpet, Dick, not without some seriousness, made her sit down.

  ‘Esther!’ he began, ‘there is something you ought to know. You know my father is a rich man, and you would think, now that we love each other, we might marry when we pleased. But I fear, darling, we may have long to wait, and shall want all our courage.’

  ‘I have courage for anything,’ she said, ‘I have all I want; with you and my father, I am so well off, and waiting is made so happy, that I could wait a lifetime and not weary.’

  He had a sharp pang at the mention of the Admiral. ‘Hear me out,’ he continued. ‘I ought to have told you this before; but it is a thought I shrink from; if it were possible, I should not tell you even now. My poor father and I are scarce on speaking terms.’

  ‘Your father,’ she repeated, turning pale.

  ‘It must sound strange to you; but yet I cannot think I am to blame,’ he said. ‘I will tell you how it happened.’

  ‘Oh Dick!’ she said, when she had heard him to an end, ‘how brave you are, and how proud. Yet I would not be proud with a father. I would tell him all.’

  ‘What!’ cried Dick, ‘go in months after, and brag that I had meant to thrash the man, and then didn’t. And why? Because my father had made a bigger ass of himself than I supposed. My dear, that’s nonsense.’

  She winced at his words and drew away. ‘But when that is all he asks,’ she pleaded. ‘If he only knew that you had felt that impulse, it would make him so proud and happy. He would see you were his own son after all, and had the same thoughts and the same chivalry of spirit. And then you did yourself injustice when you spoke just now. It was because the editor was weak and poor and excused himself, that you repented your first determination. Had he been a big red man, with whiskers, you would have beaten him — you know you would — if Mr. Naseby had been ten times more committed. Do you think, if you can tell it to me, and I understand at once, that it would be more difficult to tell it to your own father, or that he would not be more ready to sympathise with you than I am? And I love you, Dick; but then he is your father.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Dick, desperately, ‘you do not understand; you do not know what it is to be treated with daily want of comprehension and daily small injustices, through childhood and boyhood and manhood, until you despair of a hearing, until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until you almost hate the sight of the man you love, and who’s your father after all. In short, Esther, you don’t know what it is to have a father, and that’s what blinds you.’

  ‘I see,’ she said musingly, ‘you mean that I am fortunate in my father. But I am not so fortunate after all; you forget, I do not know him; it is you who know him; he is already more your father than mine.’ And here she took his hand. Dick’s heart had grown as cold as ice. ‘But I am sorry for you, too,’ she continued, ‘it must be very sad and lonely.’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ said Dick, chokingly. ‘My father is the best man I know in all this world; he is worth a hundred of me, only he doesn’t understand me, and he can’t be made to.’

  There was a silence for a while. ‘Dick,’ she began again, ‘I am going to ask a favour, it’s the first since you said you loved me. May I see your father — see him pass, I mean, where he will not observe me?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Dick.

  ‘It is a fancy; you forget, I am romantic about fathers.’

  The hint was enough for Dick; he consented with haste, and full of hang-dog penitence and disgust, took her down by a backway and planted her in the shrubbery, whence she might see the Squire ride by to dinner. There they both sat silent, but holding hands, for nearly half an hour. At last the trotting of a horse sounded in the distance, the park gates opened with a clang, and then Mr. Naseby appeared, with stooping shoulders and a heavy, bilious countenance, languidly rising to the trot. Esther recognised him at once; she had often seen him before, though with her huge indifference for all that lay outside the circle of her love, she had never so much as wondered who he was; but now she recognised him, and found him ten years older, leaden and springless, and stamped by an abiding sorrow.

  ‘Oh Dick, Dick!’ she said, and the tears began to shine upon her face as she hid it in his bosom; his own fell thickly too. They had a sad walk home, and that night, full of love and good counsel, Dick exerted every art to please his father, to convince him of his respect and affection, to heal up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But alas! the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day glooming over Dick’s estrangement — for so he put it to himself, and now with growls, cold words, and the cold shoulder, he beat off all advances, and entrenched himself in a just resentment.

  CHAPTER V — THE PRODIGAL FATHER MAKES HIS DEBUT AT HOME

  That took place upon a Tuesday. On the Thursday following, as Dick was walking by appointment, earlier than usual, in the direction of the cottage, he was appalled to meet in the lane a fly from Thymebury, containing the human form of Miss M’Glashan. The lady did not deign to remark him in her passage; her face was suffused with tears, and expressed much concern for the packages by which she was surrounded. He stood still, and asked himself what this circumstance might portend. It was so beautiful a day that he was loth to forecast evil, yet something must perforce have happened at the cottage, and that of a decisive nature; for here was Miss M’Glashan on her travels, with a small patrimony in brown paper parcels, and the old lady’s bearing implied hot battle and unqualified defeat. Was the house to be closed against him? Was Esther left alone, or had some new protector made his appearance from among the millions of Europe? It is the character of love to loathe the near relatives of the loved one; chapters in the history of the human race have justified this feeling, and the conduct of uncles, in particular, has frequently met with censure from the independent novelist. Miss M’Glashan was now seen in the rosy colours of regret; whoever succeeded her, Dick felt the change would be for the worse. He hurried forward in this spirit; his anxiety grew upon him with every step; as he entered the garden a voice fell upon his ear, and he was once more arrested, not this time by doubt, but by indubitable certainty of ill.

  The thunderbolt had fallen; the Admiral was here.

  Dick would have retreated, in the panic terror of the moment; but Esther kept a bright look-out when her lover was expected. In a twinkling she was by his side, brimful of news and pleasure, too glad to notice his embarrassment, and in one of those golden transports of exultation which transcend not only words but caresses. She took him by the end of the fingers (reaching forward to take them, for her great preoccupation was to save time), she drew him towards her, pushed him past her in the door, and planted him face to face with Mr. Van Tromp, in a suit of French country velveteens and with a remarkable carbuncle on his nose. Then, as though this was the end of what she could endure in the way of joy, Esther turned and ran out of the room.

  The two men remained looking at each other with some confusion on both sides. Van Tromp was naturally the first to recover; he put out his hand with a fine gesture.

  ‘And you know my little lass, my Esther?’ he said. ‘This is pleasant; this is what I have conceived of home. A strange word for the old rover; but we all have a taste for home and the home-like, disguise it how we may. It has brought me here, Mr. Naseby,’ he concluded, with an intonation that would have made his fortune on the stage, so just, so sad, so dignified, so like a man of the world and a philosopher, ‘and you see a man who is content.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dick.

  ‘Sit down,’ continued the parasite, setting the example. ‘Fortune has gone against me. (I am just sirrupping a little brandy — after my journey.) I was going down, Mr. Naseby; between you and me, I was décavé; I borrowed fifty francs, smuggled my valise past the concierge — a work of considerable tact — and here I am!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dick; ‘and here you are.’ He was quite idiotic.

  Esther, at this moment, re-entered the room.

  ‘Are you glad to see him?’ she whispered in his ear, the pleasure in her voice almost bursting through the whisper into song.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Dick, ‘very.’

  ‘I knew you would be,’ she replied; ‘I told him how you loved him.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said the Admiral, ‘help yourself; and let us drink to a new existence.’

  ‘To a new existence,’ repeated Dick; and he raised the tumbler to his lips, but set it down untasted. He had had enough of novelties for one day.

  Esther was sitting on a stool beside her father’s feet, holding her knees in her arms, and looking with pride from one to the other of her two visitors. Her eyes were so bright that you were never sure if there were tears in them or not; little voluptuous shivers ran about her body; sometimes she nestled her chin into her throat, sometimes threw back her head, with ecstasy; in a word, she was in that state when it is said of people that they cannot contain themselves for happiness. It would be hard to exaggerate the agony of Richard.

  And, in the meantime, Van Tromp ran on interminably.

  ‘I never forget a friend,’ said he, ‘nor yet an enemy: of the latter, I never had but two — myself and the public; and I fancy I have had my vengeance pretty freely out of both.’ He chuckled. ‘But those days are done. Van Tromp is no more. He was a man who had successes; I believe you knew I had successes — to which we shall refer no farther,’ pulling down his neckcloth with a smile. ‘That man exists no more: by an exercise of will I have destroyed him. There is something like it in the poets. First, a brilliant and conspicuous career — the observed, I may say, of all observers, including the bum-bailie: and then, presto! a quiet, sly, old, rustic bonhomme, cultivating roses. In Paris, Mr. Naseby—’

  ‘Call him Richard, father,’ said Esther.

  ‘Richard, if he will allow me. Indeed, we are old friends, and now near neighbours; and, à propos, how are we off for neighbours, Richard? The cottage stands, I think, upon your father’s land — a family which I respect — and the wood, I understand, is Lord Trevanion’s. Not that I care; I am an old Bohemian. I have cut society with a cut direct; I cut it when I was prosperous, and now I reap my reward, and can cut it with dignity in my declension. These are our little amours propres, my daughter: your father must respect himself. Thank you, yes; just a leetle, leetle, tiny — thanks, thanks; you spoil me. But, as I was saying, Richard, or was about to say, my daughter has been allowed to rust; her aunt was a mere duenna; hence, in parenthesis, Richard, her distrust of me; my nature and that of the duenna are poles asunder — poles! But, now that I am here, now that I have given up the fight, and live henceforth for one only of my works — I have the modesty to say it is my best — my daughter — well, we shall put all that to rights. The neighbours, Richard?’

  Dick was understood to say that there were many good families in the Vale of Thyme.

  ‘You shall introduce us,’ said the Admiral.

  Dick’s shirt was wet; he made a lumbering excuse to go; which Esther explained to herself by a fear of intrusion, and so set down to the merit side of Dick’s account, while she proceeded to detain him.

  ‘Before our walk?’ she cried. ‘Never! I must have my walk.’

  ‘Let us all go,’ said the Admiral, rising.

  ‘You do not know that you are wanted,’ she cried, leaning on his shoulder with a caress. ‘I might wish to speak to my old friend about my new father. But you shall come to-day, you shall do all you want; I have set my heart on spoiling you.’

  ‘I will just take one drop more,’ said the Admiral, stooping to help himself to brandy. ‘It is surprising how this journey has fatigued me. But I am growing old, I am growing old, I am growing old, and — I regret to add — bald.’

  He cocked a white wide-awake coquettishly upon his head — the habit of the lady-killer clung to him; and Esther had already thrown on her hat, and was ready, while he was still studying the result in a mirror: the carbuncle had somewhat painfully arrested his attention.

  ‘We are papa now; we must be respectable,’ he said to Dick, in explanation of his dandyism: and then he went to a bundle and chose himself a staff. Where were the elegant canes of his Parisian epoch? This was a support for age, and designed for rustic scenes. Dick began to see and appreciate the man’s enjoyment in a new part, when he saw how carefully he had ‘made it up.’ He had invented a gait for this first country stroll with his daughter, which was admirably in key. He walked with fatigue, he leaned upon the staff; he looked round him with a sad, smiling sympathy on all that he beheld; he even asked the name of a plant, and rallied himself gently for an old town bird, ignorant of nature. ‘This country life will make me young again,’ he sighed. They reached the top of the hill towards the first hour of evening; the sun was descending heaven, the colour had all drawn into the west; the hills were modelled in their least contour by the soft, slanting shine; and the wide moorlands, veined with glens and hazelwoods, ran west and north in a hazy glory of light. Then the painter wakened in Van Tromp.

  ‘Gad, Dick,’ he cried, ‘what value!’

  An ode in four hundred lines would not have seemed so touching to Esther; her eyes filled with happy tears; yes, here was the father of whom she had dreamed, whom Dick had described; simple, enthusiastic, unworldly, kind, a painter at heart, and a fine gentleman in manner.

  And just then the Admiral perceived a house by the wayside, and something depending over the house door which might be construed as a sign by the hopeful and thirsty.

  ‘Is that,’ he asked, pointing with his stick, ‘an inn?’

  There was a marked change in his voice, as though he attached importance to the inquiry: Esther listened, hoping she should hear wit or wisdom.

  Dick said it was.

  ‘You know it?’ inquired the Admiral.

  ‘I have passed it a hundred times, but that is all,’ replied Dick.

  ‘Ah,’ said Van Tromp, with a smile, and shaking his head; ‘you are not an old campaigner; you have the world to learn. Now I, you see, find an inn so very near my own home, and my first thought is my neighbours. I shall go forward and make my neighbours’ acquaintance; no, you needn’t come; I shall not be a moment.’

  And he walked off briskly towards the inn, leaving Dick alone with Esther on the road.

  ‘Dick,’ she exclaimed, ‘I am so glad to get a word with you; I am so happy, I have such a thousand things to say; and I want you to do me a favour. Imagine, he has come without a paint-box, without an easel; and I want him to have all. I want you to get them for me in Thymebury. You saw, this moment, how his heart turned to painting. They can’t live without it,’ she added; meaning perhaps Van Tromp and Michel Angelo.