He has been under his valet’s hands this morning to be made presentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a responsible dressing-gown. His eyeglass and his watch are ready to his hand. It is necessary—less to his own dignity now perhaps than for her sake—that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much himself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock, is no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his present stand against distress of mind and body most courageously.
The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of undisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by any other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell on her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as what’s his name, her favourite Life Guardsman—the man she dotes on, the dearest of creatures—who was killed at Waterloo.
Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares about him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it necessary to explain.
“Miss Dedlock don’t speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my youngest. I have found him. He has come home.”
Sir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. “George? Your son George come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?”
The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. “Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester.”
Does this discovery of someone lost, this return of someone so long gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he think, “Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after this, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in his?”
It is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be understood.
“Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?”
“It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being well enough to be talked to of such things.”
Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that nobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell’s son and that she was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, with warmth enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir Leicester as soon as he got better.
“Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?” asks Sir Leicester.
Mrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the doctor’s injunctions, replies, in London.
“Where in London?”
Mrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house.
“Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly.”
The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his hearing wheels.
He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper son. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily ashamed of himself.
“Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!” exclaims Sir Leicester. “Do you remember me, George?”
The trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that sound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a little helped by his mother, he replies, “I must have a very bad memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you.”
“When I look at you, George Rouncewell,” Sir Leicester observes with difficulty, “I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold—I remember well—very well.”
He looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he looks at the sleet and snow again.
“I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester,” says the trooper, “but would you accept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir Leicester, if you would allow me to move you.”
“If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good.”
The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, and turns him with his face more towards the window. “Thank you. You have your mother’s gentleness,” returns Sir Leicester, “and your own strength. Thank you.”
He signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to.
“Why did you wish for secrecy?” It takes Sir Leicester some time to ask this.
“Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I—I should still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed—which I hope you will not be long—I should still hope for the favour of being allowed to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of.”
“You have been a soldier,” observes Sir Leicester, “and a faithful one.”
George makes his military bow. “As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I have done my duty under discipline, and it was the
