“He fell into suspicion,” said Louisa, “with his fellow-weavers, because he had made a promise not to be one of them. I think it must have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made it?”
Rachael burst into tears. “I didn’t seek it of him, poor lad, I prayed him to avoid trouble for his own good, little thinking he’d come to it through me. But I know he’d die a hundred deaths, ere ever he’d break his word. I know that of him well.”
Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful attitude, with his hand at his chin. He now spoke in a voice rather less steady than usual.
“No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an what love, and respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi’ what cause. When I passed that promess, I towd her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. ‘Twere a solemn promess. ‘Tis gone fro’ me, for ever.”
Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that was new in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and her features softened. “What will you do?” she asked him. And her voice had softened too.
“Weel, ma’am,” said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile; “when I ha finished off, I mun quit this part, and try another. Fortnet or misfortnet, a man can but try; there’s nowt to be done wi’out tryin’ – cept laying down and dying.”
“How will you travel?”
“Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.”
Louisa colored, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of a bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the table.
“Rachael, will you tell him – for you know how, without offence – that this is freely his, to help him on his way? Will you entreat him to take it?”
“I canna do that, young lady,” she answered, turning her head aside. “Bless you for thinking o’ the poor lad wi’ such tenderness. But ’tis for him to know his heart and what is right according to it.”
Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part overcome with quick sympathy, when this man of so much self-command, who had been so plain and steady through the late interview, lost his composure in a moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. She stretched out hers, as if she would have touched him; then checked herself and remained still.
“Not e’en Rachael,” said Stephen, when he stood again with his face uncovered, “could mak sitch a kind offerin, by onny words, kinder T’ show that I’m not a man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak two pound. I’ll borrow ‘t for t’ pay ‘t back. ‘Twill be the sweetest work as ever I ha done, that puts it in my power t’ acknowledge once more my lasting thankfulness for this present action.”
She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor handsome, nor picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of expressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in it that Lord Chesterfield could not have taught his son in a century.
Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg, and sucking his walking-stick with sufficient unconcern, until the visit had attained this stage. Seeing his sister ready to depart, he got up, rather hurriedly, and put in a word.
“Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should like to speak to him a moment. Something comes into my head. If you’ll step out on the stairs, Blackpool, I’ll mention it. Never mind a light, man!” Tom was remarkably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard to get one. “It don’t want a light.”
Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and held the lock in his hand.
“I say!” he whispered. “I think I can do you a good turn. Don’t ask me what it is, because it may not come to anything. But there’s no harm in my trying.”