CHAPTER IX.

TIMELY BANISHMENT.

BEFORE Eustace Thorburn could nerve himself for the self-sacrificial act which was to accomplish his banishment from that Berkshire Eden known as Greenlands, Fate took the doing of the deed out of his hands, and brought about his departure in the simplest and most natural manner.

For the completion of M. de Bergerac’s ponderous work, it was necessary that certain rare manuscripts in the Imperial Library of Paris should be examined, and for the examination of these Mr. Thorburn’s daily increasing knowledge of Sanscrit rendered him fairly competent. For the exile, Paris was a forbidden city, but to this young man, recommended by Mr. Jerningham, the Imperial Library would be open. M. de Bergerac had long meditated asking this favour of his secretary, and had watched the young student’s progress in the Oriental dialects with impatient longing. The time had now arrived when he felt that Eustace was qualified to undertake the required work, and he took an early opportunity of sounding him upon the subject.

“There is work for some months,” he said; “but Paris is at all times a pleasant city, and I do not think you would be tired of a residence there. I can give you introductions to agreeable people, who will receive my friend with all kindness. You can find some airy apartment near the library, and take your life easily. Your limited means will secure you from the temptations and dissipations of the capital, but not deprive you of its simpler pleasures.”

“My dear sir, you are all goodness. I shall be only too happy to work for you in Paris, and on the most moderate terms. I have no wish for pleasure. Life is so short, and art so long; and I have such an impatient desire to succeed in the only career that is open to me.”

“It is a noble impatience, and I will not stand in your way; give me four hours a day of such work as you have given me here, and the rest of your time will be your own.”

After this interview there was nothing to hinder Mr. Thorburn’s departure. He waited only for his employer’s instructions, and his familiarity with all the details of the work made these instructions very easy to him; while frequent correspondence with his patron would enable him to work in perfect harmony with the author of the great book. Within a week of his perusal of his father’s book, he bade his friends at Greenlands farewell, and started for London _en route_ for Paris, provided with a letter from Mr. Jerningham to the chiefs of the British Embassy, which would insure his free use of the Imperial Library.

Helen’s face told him that she was sorry to lose her friend and instructor. But the depth of that sorrow he could not fathom.

“Papa says it is likely you will be away three or four months,” she said. “How much of my Greek I shall lose in that time! Papa never can find time for me to read to him now; and you will forget your piano-forte music, for I don’t suppose you will take the trouble to practise in Paris. And I shall have no one to play the basses of my overtures.”

Eustace murmured something to the effect that for him the cessation of those basses would be desolation and despair, but more than such vague protestations he dared not trust himself to utter.

“It is fortunate for me that I am sent away,” he thought. “I could not keep silence much longer; and I know not when I could have found courage to tear myself from this sweet home.”

Helen’s thoughtful eyes looked up at him, wonderingly, as he stood before her, with her hand retained in his just a little longer than their relative positions warranted. But when they met his, the dark-blue eyes fell again, and the two stood silent, as if spellbound.

The spell was broken by the voice of M. de Bergerac calling from the porch.

“The fly has been waiting ten minutes,” he cried. “Come, Thorburn, if you want to catch the 4.30 from Windsor.”

“Good-bye, Miss de Bergerac--God bless you! Thank you a thousand times for all your goodness to me!” said Eustace; and in the next instant he was gone.

“_My_ goodness! And he has been so kind to me,” murmured Helen.

She went to the open window and watched the fly drive away, and waved a parting salutation to the traveller with her pretty white hand. When the sound of the wheels had melted into silence, she went back to her books and her piano, and wondered to find how much there seemed wanting in her life now that Mr. Thorburn was gone.

“What will papa do without him?” she asked. The Newfoundland came into the room panting and distressed as she spoke. He had followed the vehicle that bore Eustace away, and had been repulsed by the driver.

“And what shall _we_ do without him, Heph?” asked the young lady, hopelessly, as she embraced her favourite.

Eustace found his Uncle Dan waiting dinner for him in the comfortable room in Great Ormond Street; and in that genial companionship he spent the eve of his departure very pleasantly. The two men talked long and earnestly of the book which both had read. Eustace told his uncle of his idea about a Scotch marriage; and they went over the significant passages in the autobiographical romance together, with much deliberation.

“Yes, lad; I believe you’ve hit it,” said Daniel Mayfield at last. “These vague hints certainly bear out your notion. I know not how far this domicile of something less than a year may constitute a Scotch marriage, for the laws of Scotland upon the marriage-question have been ever inscrutable; but it is evident the man believed himself in your sister’s power.”

“I should like to find the scene of my mother’s sorrow,” said Eustace. “Will you take a holiday when my work is done in Paris, Uncle Dan, and go to the Highlands with me, to look for that spot?”

“My dear boy, how can we hope to identify the place?”

“By means of this book, and by inquiry when we get to the neighbourhood.”

“The book gives us nothing but initials.”

“No; but if the initials are genuine, as it is most likely they are, we may easily identify the spot with the aid of a good map.”

“I doubt it.”

“I assure you the thing is possible,” said Eustace, earnestly. “There are several initials indicative of different localities. Let us start with the supposition that these are genuine; and if we can fit them to localities within a given radius, we may fancy ourselves on the right track. We have the general features of the place--a wild, mountainous district, steep cliffs, sands, and lonely shanties. See, I have jotted down the places indicated by initials. Here they are:

‘1st. H. H. The head-quarters of Dion.

‘2nd. D. P. A craggy headland, crowned by a little classic temple.

‘3rd. The most uninteresting ruins in A. A. would seem, therefore, to be the initial of the country.

“There are your indications, Uncle Dan; the map or a guide-book must do the rest. You would take as much trouble to decipher a puzzle in arithmetic, or to work a difficult problem in Euclid. My mother’s fate is more to me--nearer to your heart, I know--than all Euclid.”

“But if we find the scene and identify it, what then?”

“The scene may tell me the name of the man.”

“What, Eustace! still the old foolish eagerness to know what is better left unknown?”

“To the very end of my life, Uncle Dan. And now let us look at your map of Scotland.”

“I have no map worth looking at. No, Eustace, there shall be no attempts at discovery to-night. Leave me that scrap of paper, and while you are away I will try to identify these places. When you return, we will take our Highland holiday together, come what may. It will be fresh life to me to get away from London, and I will not say how pleasant it will be to me to take my pleasure with you.”

“Dear, true friend.”

They shook hands, in token that to this plan both were irrevocably bound.

The morning’s mail-train carried Eustace to Dover, and on the next night he slept at a humble hotel near the Luxembourg. He had no difficulty in finding a commodious lodging within his modest means, and he began his work at the great library two days after his arrival. The people to whom he brought letters of introduction were people of the best kind, but Eustace availed himself sparely of their hospitable invitations. His days were spent in the library; his nights were given to the great poem, which grew and ripened under his patient hand.

“If it should be a success!” he said to himself; “if it should go home to the hearts of the people--as true poetry should go--at once--with an electric power! It has brought the tears to my eyes, it has quickened the beating of my heart, it has kept me awake of nights with a fever of hope and rapture; but for all that it may be only fustian. A man’s dreams and thoughts may be bright enough, but the translation of them cold and dull; or the thoughts themselves may be worthless--rotten wood, not to be made sound by any showy veneer of language.”

The poem which was to make or unmake Mr. Thorburn was no metaphysical treatise done into rhyme--no ambitious epic, ponderous as Milton, without Miltonic grandeur. It was a modern romance in verse--a love-story--passionate, tender, tragical, and the heart of the poet throbbed in every line.

His life in Paris was eventless. Very dear to him were the letters that came from Greenlands--letters in which Helen’s name appeared very often,--letters in which he was told that his absence was regretted, his return wished for.

“It is like having a home,” he said to himself; “and I dare not return to that dear home, or must return only to confess my secret and submit to a decree of banishment!”

One of the letters from Greenlands--a letter that came to him when he had been about six weeks in Paris--brought him startling news: Harold Jerningham was a widower. The handsome young wife, whom Eustace had heard of from his employer, had died at Madeira.

“They met before the lady left England,” wrote M. de Bergerac, “and parted excellent friends. Indeed, they had never quarrelled. The reason of their separation was never revealed to the world, but Harold has half-admitted to me that he was to blame.”