A long pause ensued. A new day was dawning, and the faint light rested upon the solemn face of the dead woman, to whom peace had come at last. Alfred turned his eyes towards it, and shuddered. Then he turned to the old man, and said in a low voice,
"And my father, sir?"
"In this iron box are two papers," said the old man; "one from him, promising never to trouble his wife and children more, and one from the man he wronged, giving quittance of what is set down as a debt. Your father kept his word. I have never seen him since that time."
Alfred kissed his mother's face, and covered it. Then he held out his hand to his grandfather, who took it in silence, and looked at him wistfully. But Alfred only said, humbly,
"I am tired, sir. You have been very good to us, and I will try to deserve it."
They went to the door, and the old man opened it, and saw Lily lying on the ground.
"Lily!" he cried, in alarm.
The girl slowly rose and stood before him. Her eyes were closed; she was asleep.
"Lily, my darling!" he said, tenderly placing his arm round her, "Why have you been sleeping here?"
The girl did not answer, but nestled in his arms as if she found comfort there. He led her into the room, and she accompanied him unresistingly.
"She has been overwrought, poor child," said the old man in a troubled voice.
They stood in silence for a few moments, almost fearing to speak; she still sleeping, with her sweet face turned towards the morning light, which, gradually growing brighter, illumined the strange group.
The parish of Stapleton, of which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was pastor, was situated a very few miles from London, and contained, it is to be presumed (and not to do violence to the science of divine things), an equal number of human bodies and souls. The number--reckoning the two as one--was not large, and the tithes were small, a circumstance which it is waste of time to mention, for what minister loves his emoluments better than his church? And yet in common minds a mean suspicion is sometimes engendered as to the comparative value of one and the other in the eyes of the clergy. Without indorsing this suspicion--rejecting it, indeed, as the vilest of calumnies--it is curious to observe that, when a minister has a "call," the summons from heaven generally holds out the promise of an increased earthly income. It is a proof of the base depths of which the mind is capable, and the fact of the divine summons being very generally joyfully responded to, should engender a tittle of suspicion. But unfortunately there are in the world men to whose moral perception purity of motive is a human impossibility; to such men the flesh-pots of Egypt contain the most powerful argument it is possible to conceive.
Stapleton was a tumble-down little parish, and bore unmistakable signs of being badly off. Everything in it and about it had been crumbling away for many generations. Magnates there were in it of course--most of them elderly gentlemen, with puffy faces and big stomachs, at whom the poor children of the parish, in dirty pinafores, their large eyes staring upwards, and their hands behind them, would gaze in worship. The predecessors of these great men were crumbling away in the picturesque old churchyard, making the soil rich for buttercups and daisies, with which the dirty children played and pelted one another. There were many picturesque bits of scenery about Stapleton; notwithstanding its poverty, it was not an undesirable living for a clergyman, and the patching-up and medicining of souls--which, according to doctrinal teaching, are always lame and diseased, coming into the world so, and so remaining--went on pretty much in the same way and quite as unsuccessfully as in most other parishes. Doctors for bodies and doctors for souls are so abundant, and increase and multiply so amazingly, that the human machine on two legs which walks the earth, and which Leigh Hunt's fish so very properly laughed at, may be said to be in a very bad state indeed.
Such, at all events, the preaching of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell went to prove. According to his pulpit-doctrine, corruption was the normal state of man--and woman also, of course. This condition was bad enough in all conscience, but it was a miserable thing to be compelled to believe that it could never be bettered. The conviction was forced upon them by their pastor; his utterings were destructive of hope. He had preached to them a library of sermons, and middle-aged sinners of his congregation had grown old during his term. Inevitable time was pushing them nearer and nearer to the grave; but there was no more hope for them now than there had been long ago, when there were many years of life before them. Sinners then, sinners now. How was salvation to be obtained? They went to church, and listened to their pastor's words, but found no consolation in them. The refrain of his sermon was the same now as it had been the first day on which he ascended the pulpit, and preached to them not salvation but the other thing. As he and the members of his flock grew older, he grew more stern, and they more disconsolate. The time for them for reaching grace was getting very short, and still corruption held them fast, would not let them go indeed. When the Sabbath service was ended, they wended their way home, depressed and in the saddest of moods. For their pastor hurt and bruised the miserable sinners without mercy. He said, "This shall ye do out of fear of the Lord;" and no suggestion of love brought light to the benighted ones. He told them to cleanse their souls; he had told them to do this any time for twenty years, but he did not supply them with the divine soap and water necessary for the operation. He spoke in parables, and left them to draw the moral. He presented problems to them, hard nuts of divinity which they found it impossible to crack. He used the Bible like a catapult, and from this engine he, week after week, hurled terrible inflictions at their hands, until some impressionable souls grew to believe that God was a very dreadful creature, and that it would have been better for them if they had never been introduced into this world of sorrow, which was to be followed by another full of penalties.
Not one of his parishioners loved him. But they thought he was a good man, notwithstanding--so good, indeed, that goodness became disagreeable in their eyes, and some of them deemed that it must be exceedingly pleasant to be naughty. The fact of this man having the charge of many precious souls (to use the stereotyped vernacular), and preaching the highest and holiest lessons for years to persons who did not, could not love him, was one of the strangest of anomalies. In his exhortations he seemed to declare, "I am sent to bruise, not to heal; here is a stone for you; here are vinegar and salt for your wounds; here are shadows and awful images to appal you, and to make your death-bed agonising; here are the waters of grace--taste them, and find them bitter!" After such exhortation, how could they love God?--how could they love His minister? Prisoners do not love their gaolers. And this man, having the charge of souls, held them in grim custody with the hard spirit of a gaoler.
They writhed and suffered in his grasp, but they had no word to say against him. He was an eminently respectable man; had never been seen to smile; and they touched their hats to him, and paid him every deference. But it was remarkable that no person had ever been known to utter a word in praise of him. Women--especially women in humble life--did not like him; and he produced a curious effect upon children. Sometimes they cried when they saw him, and sometimes they stood aside as he passed, with a kind of fear on them--petrified as it were. The effect was something similar to that which Medusa's head might have produced upon them.
His home was like his preaching. There was no light in it. It was dark and sombre. All the furniture was of dark wood; the paper on the walls of every room was dark. In the whole house, from roof to basement, there was nothing graceful in form or colour. The ornaments on the mantelshelf were ugly figures in dark wood and stone. Flowers were never seen in the house. The gas was never lighted until night had completely fallen. Nothing more oppressive can be conceived than the effect which this gloomy house and the gloomy fashion in which it was conducted would produce after a time upon a sensitive spirit. In the eyes of many, all this added to his respectability as a man of God. What wanted he with pomps and vanities? It was his mission to preach against them. Should he, then, indulge in them?
How many are there who exhibit an outward pride in living thus--who raise their eyes and hands against harmless enjoyments--whose words would rob life of its sunshine and flowers and tender feeling, and who grudge to the hungry every sweet morsel that kind impulse and kinder nature hold out to them with pitying hand! If the inner and private lives of these moralists were laid bare, what kind of lesson would they teach?
It must not be supposed that this reflection in any way touches the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. There was not a visible stain upon him; the breath of slander had never been raised against him; he was above reproach. He may have been a little stiff and uncompromising, a little too severe in his notions of this and that, but his morality and goodness were not to be questioned. As for his judgment there were at least two persons in the parish who relied implicitly upon it.
These two men were Justices of the Peace. Their names, unlike themselves, are of no consequence. It would be hard to give any other reason for their being appointed Justices of the Peace than that one was a retired colonel and the other a retired sugar-baker; and doubtless it would be a distinct libel to declare that they knew as much of law as the man in the moon. Undoubtedly they must have been worthy; undoubtedly they must have been just. What is known as "Justices' Justice" has been a theme for satire and rebuke as long as we can remember, and it is a blessing to live in a land where it would not be tolerated that one in power having committed a gross injustice--having, perhaps, helped to make infamous what might have been made beneficial--should be permitted to retain an authority which is only used to be abused. So perfect are our institutions, that it would be next to impossible that one who had proved himself by his acts to be unworthy of the distinction should be allowed to sit in judgment on his fellows year after year, to dispense unequal and merciless justice. It would be monstrous otherwise.
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was to these two Justices as a staff to lean upon--a staff that would not yield or bend, however great the pressure. He frequently sat upon the Bench with one or the other, or with both, and prompted and advised them, and indeed directed their verdicts; so that it might almost be said that they spoke out of his mouth. Dressed in his little brief authority, the retired colonel or the retired sugar-baker would sit in state pompously, with his reverend counsellor by his side, and strike terror to the heart of the hardened criminal. As thus:
A boy of tender years, in the employ of a baker, was charged with stealing a pound of flour, valued at twopence, from his master. Thefacts of the case were somewhat singular. The master discovered the theft, and in hot temper sent for a policeman, who straightway locked up the ferocious thief. Then the master repented of his hasty action, made inquiries, and from what he learned, deemed that the boy was more deserving of pity than of blame. When he made his appearance in court, he stated that he was anxious not to prosecute, and he begged that the boy might be discharged with a caution.
"But he stole the flour?" asked the Justice, prompted by his reverend counsellor.
"It wasn't worth twopence," was the evasive reply; "and I have learned since—"
"We don't want to know what he learned since," remarked the Reverend Mr. Creamwell to the Justice. "Did the boy steal the flour, or did he not?"
"Yes," echoed the parrot Justice; "we don't want to know what you have learned since. Did the boy steal the flour, or did he not?"
"He did," replied the tradesman; "but—"
"What have 'buts' to do with facts?" exclaimed the wise administrator. "The boy is a thief, and he must--eh? yes, certainly; quite proper--he must go to prison for three months, with hard labour."
So the criminal (whose first offence it was, and who had never been known to steal before) was sent to prison, where, surrounded by gentle associates and humanising influences, he learnt some salutary lessons.
Or thus:
One very cold winter evening, a poor woman--so poor that she could not afford to buy two-penny-worth of coal--was walking to her cheerless home. The sharp wind pierced to her very marrow, and the prospect before her made the cold colder. She was a charwoman, and had been unsuccessful in obtaining work during the day. Jane Plummer was her name. Her toes peeped out of her boots. Hapless Jane Plummer! She had to pass by the side of a wood which belonged to wealthy Mr. Icicle, and she saw a few rotten branches on the ground. They had dropped in the autumn, and had been soddened into the earth by many rains. Think of a sick man who for weeks had been debarred the blessings of sun and sweet air--primroses could not have gladdened his sight more than these ugly sticks gladdened the sight of Jane Plummer; fresh violets could not have been more welcome and refreshing to him than these black bits of wood were to her. They held out the hope of light and warmth. They were temptingly within reach. She stooped and picked them up, and put them into her apron, the humble badge of the Order of the Poor. Unfortunate Jane Plummer! Behind her was a policeman with a true policeman's spirit. He was off duty, but the ruling passion for taking people into custody was strong within him, and he never missed a chance. Besides, he yearned for promotion; he looked forward to being a sergeant. Animated by this blessed hope, he was as zealous a subordinate as could be found in the ranks. He knew Jane Plummer; knew that she was the poorest of the poor; knew that she had no fire, and no money to buy fuel; knew the meaning of her hesitating gait and wistful looks as the fatal branches came into view. What, now, if at this point he had turned and fled? Pooh, not to be thought of. He waited cunningly until the sticks were in her apron, and she was shuffling along with them; then he pounced upon her, and bade her come along with him. She trembled, and dropped the rotten sticks. He made her pick them up again. She sobbed and implored--unavailingly. The heart of the zealous policeman was not to be touched. Side by side they marched; he with his dreadful hand upon her arm, she holding with reluctant fingers the corners of the apron which contained the proofs of her crime. Jane Plummer passed that night in the police-station, and the next morning was brought face to face with Justice. The policeman, with modest triumph, gave his evidence.
"Taken red-handed," observed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell to the dummy by his side, who nodded with the wisdom of an owl, and asked the prisoner what she had to say for herself.
Tremblingly and with sobs, Jane Plummer said,
"If you please, your worship, it was bitter cold, and I had no fire at home, and no money to buy coal; and as I was passing by Mr. Icicle's wood, I gathered a few sticks to boil my kettle. There is a path through the wood, and I picked up the sticks by the side of the path. I didn't think there was any harm in it; the sticks ain't worth a ha'penny!"
"Had prisoner any money upon her, policeman?"
"A penny and a farthing, your worship."
Thereupon the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell remarked that the rights of property must be respected; and the sapient Justice of the Peace, having property, read Jane Plummer a lecture upon her offence, and, looking at some writing on a paper handed to him by his reverend counsellor, passed sentence--two shillings and sixpence fine, and three shillings and sixpence costs, or seven days' imprisonment.
"And I hope," added the law's administrator, with more owl's wisdom, "that this will be a caution to you never to touch sticks in gentlemen's woods again."
Jane Plummer sobbed that she would never, never, never do so again and went to prison to brood upon her sin.
These are but two cases out of many which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was instrumental in deciding. No doubt that, being actuated by a love for justice presumably more merciful (in these enlightened times) than the old Mosaic law of eye for eye and tooth for tooth, he often had to wrestle with his tender feelings; but he overcame them, as Jacob did the angel. And this mention of Jacob suggests the vision of his ladder. Say that the steps of the ladder by which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was to ascend to heaven were to be formed by good and just actions, surely such sentences as those he was instrumental in passing upon the baker's boy and hapless Jane Plummer would not be forgotten. If this thought ever occurred to him, it must have afforded him much consolation.
This that we see before us might be, to a fanciful mind, the commencement of the ladder to heaven referred to in the last chapter. It is but a sunbeam, slanting from window to floor. Strangely out of place it seems in the gloomy study which it illumines, but the myriad motes within it sparkle and flash merrily, without reference to surrounding things. It is but a sunbeam, slanting from window to floor, but there are contained within it that you and I might be the better for knowing. At the simple suggestion of the thought, a darker cloud casts a shadow upon the window through which the sunbeam has stolen, and it vanishes, leaving the study utterly dreary and gloomy. The furniture in the study is heavy and ponderous, the curtains to the windows are heavy and dark, and the bookcase is oppressive and burdened with lore. Can the house, of which this funereal study forms part, be a home? The cloud passes, and the sunbeam is alive again. Truant flashes of light dart in, and shifting restlessly in the corners of the room, strive vainly to hide themselves, as if they are conscious that they have no business in a place so serious and solemn, and wonder how they could have been so unwise as to enter. In the midst of their tribulation the door opens, and the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell enters. A deeper frown than usual is on his face. He holds a letter in his hand, which he has evidently been reading more and more.
"A Wesleyan Methodist!" he mutters. "Never been baptized in the Church of England! And the man's name is Verity, too. How could it have escaped me before? The very man, perhaps, to whom this paper refers."
He takes a small packet of papers from his desk, and selects one.
"A strange story," he muses, after reading it; "no person has any legal claim to what is due upon the debt. The statute of limitations has wiped off the obligation years ago. But the moral claim remains. I will see the man if he comes. I have some slight remembrance of him, as a man of strong opinions."
He refers to other papers, the perusal of which is evidently displeasing to him, if one can judge from the expression of his face. He pushes them aside, and leans back in his chair to think. Of what? Of his wife, who has been dead for twenty years. Not with affection does he think of her. But for a living remembrance she left behind her, she might have been to him as one who had never existed. This living remembrance is a child--a son--who, having completed his studies abroad (a phrase peculiarly adapted to fiction), has come home after many years of absence, with no prospects, no profession, and no settled aims or views for the future. Not that this gives the young gentleman the slightest concern. He is as careless a soul as is to be met with here and there, and he can spend a sovereign or a sixpence with equal pleasure. An uncle, who had paid all the expenses of his training and education (upon the express understanding that his nephew was to live away from home), had lately died, and this afternoon had been appointed for the father and son to confer together upon business matters. And upon mention of the subject, here he is. A young gentleman with no trace of seriousness in his manner, with almost laughing face, and with an easy self-possession that it would evidently take a great deal to disconcert; altogether (asking pardon first for the irreverence of the comparison) no more like his father than was Hyperion to a satyr. A bright flower is in his coat.
"Good-day, father." Although it is afternoon, it is the first time they have met to-day.
"Good-day, Shad—"
But before he can get the name out, his son laughingly interrupts him.
"Felix, father; Felix, if you love me!"
The Rev. Emanuel Creamwell waives the latter proposition, and says in a displeased tone,
"I cannot understand your reason for changing your name."
"I don't like it, father. It sounds mean. Shadrach!"
"It is a Scriptural name," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell solemnly.
"So is the one I have chosen in its place--Felix. I never could respect a man with the name of Shadrach. Besides," adds Felix, with twinkling eyes, "it is unfair to the firm."
"To what firm do you refer?"
"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They should never be parted. You know well enough, father, that you never think of the one but the other two partners pop up, as much as to say, 'Don't forget us, please! We belong to the firm.'"
Hard lines come about the thin-lipped mouth of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, and he says, with deepening frowns,
"The light manner in which you speak of these things is especially displeasing to me, and is entirely out of place in my presence and in this house."
"I almost seem to be out of place myself here," says Felix, with the slightest trace of vexation in his manner.
"Perhaps so; we will discuss that presently. Whoever lives here must conform to my rules. You were smoking in your bedroom last night."
"True, sir."
"I do not allow smoking."
"I will not smoke here again. I'll smoke my cigar in the open air for the future."
"I should prefer your not smoking at all;Idon't smoke."
"Why, sir, you wouldn't keep everybody from smoking because you don't smoke? If it were not for tobacco, the revenue of nations would go to—"
"Blazes," he is about to say, but he checks himself in time. There is so little in unison between these two natures, that when they meet it seems to be almost a necessity that they should clash. One is harsh and sour; the other is tolerant and sweet. Felix was more the son of his mother than the son of his father; the sweetness of her nature had come to him with the milk he had drawn from her breast. Father and son had not been brought together for very many years until now, and the experience they have gained of each other is not agreeable to either of them.
"You scarcely need me to tell you," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, as his son stopped at the dangerous word, "that your remarks do continual violence to my feelings."
"We certainly don't seem to pull nicely together, father. You have some business matters to speak to me about. Perhaps it will be as well to proceed to them."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell looks among the papers on the table, and says,
"Your uncle, as you know, died six weeks ago."
"So your letter informed me. Did you see him before he died?"
"I have not seen him for years. I did not approve of him; and but for its being understood that he intended to leave you as his heir, I should have declined to be upon friendly terms with him."
"He was my mother's brother, and he has been kind to me."
"So far as defraying the expenses of your education—"
"Allmy expenses, father," interrupts Felix. "Please to remember that he made me a regular allowance."
"By which you intend me to remember also," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell with a frown, "that you have been no expense to me."
"If you please to put it that way, you can. But I should prefer your thinking that I reminded you of the circumstance in order that you might do justice to the memory of my uncle."
"I do not need you to remind me of my duty; I neednoreminding of that. It is always before me. The tone of your remarks, and your general bearing towards me, proceed from the stipulation made by your uncle that you should be educated away from me and from this house."
"I mean no disrespect to you, father, believe me," exclaims Felix eagerly; "but everything about me here is so--so different from what I have been accustomed to, that I feel myself almost in a strange land." He might have said more, but he restrains himself. He might have said, "Coming home as I have done, ready and wishful to be upon affectionate terms with a father who never showed any love for me--coming home with a studied resolution to try and conform to my father's wishes, and to gain for myself a place in his affections--I find myself baffled at every turn. When my father met me, after years of absence, he met me with no smile upon his face. He might have been a man of stone for all the warmth he showed to me; a stranger could not have exhibited less tenderness in his greeting. And so it has gone on from the moment I set foot in this house, which is cold enough and gloomy enough to chill one's blood." Felix does not say this, but he thinks it, and much more to the same effect, and at the same time wonders a little whether he is in any way to blame for things being so different from what he hoped and expected.
"The stipulation made by your uncle," proceeds the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, "has thrown you into scenes and into a way of living that would certainly not meet with my approval; and if you wish to remain here, you must positively conform to my views. It is for you to change, not for me."
"Before we speak of this," says Felix, in as calm a tone as he can command, for the uncompromising bearing of his father grates strongly upon him, "will you be kind enough to tell me something more of my uncle? I have my future to look to now, and although it does not give me any anxiety, for I am sure to be all right"--with a careless wave of his hand to show that all the world was at his feet--"I would like to know what I have to depend on. My uncle must have died very suddenly."
"Sudden death is what we should all prepare ourselves for. I hope you have reflected seriously upon this and other matters not appertaining to this life."
"I don't know that I have, father," says Felix laughingly; "it's bad enough when it comes."
"I feared it!" exclaims the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "Not prepared! not prepared!"
The tone in which his father utters this lamentation is so exactly similar to the other lamentations which he has heard in other places, and which he has been in the habit of looking upon as unworthy of regard, that Felix with difficulty suppresses his disdain; but he is of too frank and open a nature not to make upon the instant a confession of faith--a confession so dreadful that the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell listened in undisguised wrath.
"I don't suppose I am prepared, father, in the way you mean, and I must confess that I don't see what necessity there is for it. I am not sent into the world to mourn; there are things in it that I like to enjoy, and that I think I was sent to enjoy; otherwise, they would not be provided. I sha'n't be the worse for enjoying them, if I live till I am seventy, and I shouldn't be the better for avoiding them, or for looking upon them as sinful."
Felix is aware of the bad impression he is producing upon his father, but he deems it a point of honour not to falter, and he goes on to the end with a certain manliness that would be refreshing in any other place than the cheerless study in which he is sitting.
"May I inquire what you call yourself in the matter of religion?" asks the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell gloomily.
"Well, father," replies Felix, with a certain puzzled hesitation, "I suppose I should call myself a Church-of-England man; but I would much prefer to call myself a Christian."
"It is useless, I expect," observes the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, after a pause, "to enter into a discussion upon these subjects with you?"
"Quite useless, I should say, father."
"Then we will continue about your uncle's affairs," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with the air of one who, encountering a difficulty, finds it insurmountable; and, curiously enough, with the air of one who feels relieved in consequence. "As I was your uncle's nearest relative, and it was understood that you were his heir, I thought it my duty, immediately I heard of his death, to hasten to his house. I then, to my astonishment, discovered that he had expended the whole of his property in the purchase of a life annuity, which, of course, dies with him. After payment of certain claims, which could not be resisted, the estate leaves you, as your uncle's heir, the exact sum of one hundred and ten pounds."
A sour smile plays about the lips of the Rev. Emanuel Creamwell; thankful as he would have been for a more fortunate issue of his brother-in-law's death as relieving him of a responsibility which he is afraid may fall upon him, and which he is wishful to be rid of, he is not displeased at this triumph over his son. But Felix is more surprised than hurt; there is no such feeling in his breast as animosity towards his uncle because a fortune is not left to him. He says in a gentle voice,
"I am not the less grateful to him for what he has done for me; and I cannot say exactly whether I am sorry that he did not leave me a fortune. I can understand now the reason of his urging me to choose a profession. He knew that he had nothing to leave me, and that I should have to depend upon myself. But he did not think that he would have died so soon; he was a healthy strong man, and the probability was that he had many years of life before him."
"I told you," interposes the Rev. Emanuel Creamwell grimly, "that we should all be prepared for sudden death; he was not prepared for it."
"We have spoken of that already," replies Felix, in a dry tone, "and it will not profit us to pursue the subject. I know that many a bad word was said about him, but after all perhaps he was not much worse than many of his neighbours. I, at all events, have cause to be grateful to him. I have no doubt that, had he lived, he would have helped me to make a career for myself. But that is still before me; I haven't the slightest fear. The circumstance of his leaving so small an estate speaks for him. It proves that in the allowance he made me he went to the full extent of his means, and that between us we managed to swallow up his annuity pretty well to the last shilling." In his anxiety to do justice to the memory of his uncle, his generous mind seizes every point that reflects credit upon the dead man. "Be a lawyer, he wrote to me over and over again, be an architect, be an engineer, be something, whatever it is, and come home and let us set about it. That showed he was in earnest, and meant to stand by me."
"We are not likely to agree upon this or any other subject. I have but few words to say in conclusion, relating to your uncle's affairs. He left a request behind him, in a document written some years ago, that when he died all his papers and letters should be burnt. This was done; they were all burnt with the exception of one, which contains the recital of a singular story; I thought it desirable to keep it, as it may be worth money, and as I think it concerns a man who once dwelt in this locality. And that, I believe, is all I have to say respecting your uncle."
A long and embarrassing silence follows, each knowing that the most momentous part of the interview is to come. Felix is unusually grave, for he cannot but feel that the relations existing between himself and his father are to some extent unnatural. Anxious as he is to find the road to his father's good wishes--affection seems to be out of the question--the consciousness is forced upon him that the only road open to him is one the treading of which will compel him to be false to himself. And that he cannot be. Come what may, he is determined not to play the hypocrite. He is the first to break the silence.
"You have something else to speak of, father."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell clears his throat, in precisely the same way as he was in the habit of doing when he was about to deliver a more than usually disagreeable discourse to his congregation. This clearing of the throat did not have the effect usually produced; it did not clear his voice. On the contrary, his tones on these occasions invariably became more harsh and discordant--like rusty iron. It is in these rusty-iron tones he speaks now, and every word he utters grates upon Felix, and sets his soul on edge.
"I have something else to speak of, but the subject is the same--yourself. I am disappointed in you."
"I am sorry for it, father."
"The opinions you entertain of religious matters are sinful in my eyes. I should so regard them if they were entertained by a stranger, and it is not because you are my son that I should exercise an unwise leniency towards you in matters which I deem of the utmost importance. You have contracted habits which I do not approve of. Your views I do not approve of. Your dress, your manner, your general conduct, are not in accordance with my ideas. That gay flower in your coat is unnecessary. Outward observances show the inward spirit."
"Not always, father," said Felix, with somewhat of recklessness; "I have known men who wore masks."
"Is that meant as an imputation upon me?" asks the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, the gulf between father and son widening at every word that is spoken.
"I was thinking at the moment," replies Felix, urged on by a feeling he cannot resist, "of what a French writer said upon the subject of outward observances and inward spirit. He said that the true man is that which exists under what is called man, and that, strictly speaking, the human visage is a mask."
"Such vague generalities are after the common manner of French romancists, whose writings lead the soul astray."
Here Felix thinks scornfully, "Why drag the soul in?" but he does not speak his thought.
"They take us," continues the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, joining the tips of his fingers and thumbs, and making an arch of them, "from the point we are speaking upon. I must desire that you do not break in again with such unseemly interruptions."
"I wish you would remember, father, that I am a man, and not a child. I have opinions of my own, and it is no fault of mine if they do not agree with yours."
"You are my son, and, as such, owe me implicit obedience. You have not decided yet as to a profession?"
"No."
"Your uncle dying leaves me in an unpleasant position. I am not rich; I have but little money to spare. Something the world will expect me to do for you—"
"O, pray, sir," interrupted Felix, "don't study the world. I shall get along well enough without assistance, I haven't the slightest doubt."
"Something, I say, the world will expect me to do for you; but if I do it, out of my small means, I shall require from you deference, respect, obedience. I have expressed my opinion of your views. You say in reply that you are a man, and have opinions of your own. Those opinions you will perhaps find it advisable to change. Until a profession is determined upon, you can stay here; but only upon the express understanding that you conform to my rules. You are the best judge whether this arrangement will suit you."
Felix, with a wry face, is about to reject this ungracefully-offered hospitality, and to say that perhaps it will be better for him to find a lodgment elsewhere, when an interruption occurs. Voices are heard in the passage, and the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's housekeeper makes her appearance at the study-door. Strictly speaking, she might be described as a colourless woman, her dress being black, and her face being white.
"Some persons to see you, sir," she says.
"I cannot be interrupted," replies the Reverend Mr. Creamwell.
"But they insist, sir."
"Name?"
"Verity."
"Let them come in."
The next moment old Wheels with Lily and Alfred enter the room.
Humbly they stood before the minister and his son, and there was silence for a moment or two in the gloomy study. From the window of the study the parish churchyard could be plainly seen, and Felix, looking through the window while the conversation between his father and the housekeeper was taking place, saw a coffin lying by the side of a newly-made grave, and a little group of persons standing about it in the sun's light. This group was composed of Gribble junior and his wife, and Mrs. Podmore and her little Polly. Gribble junior's heir was also there, under shade. The youngster was asleep on the turf at the foot of a tall and weary tombstone, on which was an inscription to the effect that the soul that had once animated the clay beneath it had assuredly gone to the place where the wicked ceased from troubling and the weary are at rest. The letters which recorded this desirable consummation of a life's labour were nearly worn away by time, and the woeful tombstone, as it leaned towards the earth, exhibited in its attitude a yearning to fall upon its face, and to go also to the place where the weary are at rest. Over the head of Gribble junior's heir a large umbrella was spread to protect him from the sun. The umbrella served two purposes--it kept the child in shade, and advertised the business. For glaring upon the Cambridge blue silk was an advertisement, in yellow paint, of Gribble junior's Royal Umbrella and Parasol Hospital; and the proprietor of that establishment, complacently surveying the announcement, did not seem to think that it was at all out of place in the old churchyard. Little Polly, to whom everything that she had never seen before possessed surpassing interest, was looking about her with that solemn wonder which is often seen on children's faces. The gravedigger, a young man who should have known better, stood with his foot resting upon his spade; and the group was completed by two very old men who took an interest in funerals, and three dirty children with the usual dirty pinafores and the usual staring eyes.
The occasion was made quite a holiday by Mrs. Podmore and Mrs. Gribble junior. When Lily's Mather died, there was much sympathy expressed for her and her grandfather in the crowded house in Soho; and the women, notwithstanding they had ordinarily not a minute to spare from their pressing duties, busied themselves unostentatiously in assisting Lily and the old man through their trouble. Thus, Mrs. Podmore took upon herself Lily's household work, and cleaned and tidied the rooms, and cooked the meals for them until after the funeral; and Mrs. Gribble junior, being a perfect marvel with her needle, set to work at once making a black dress and bonnet for Lily. This quick practical sympathy is very common and very beautiful among the poor. Then Mrs. Podmore and Mrs. Gribble junior had settled that they ought to go to the funeral, which was to take place somewhere near Gravesend, in accordance with the wish of the dying woman. They spoke of it to their respective husbands. Gribble junior said, "We'll all go; and we'll take the young 'un. He's never been to a funeral; it'll open up his ideas, as a body might say." As if such an opportunity should, for the baby's sake, on no account be allowed to slip. Mrs. Podmore toldherhusband when they were in bed. He had come home, worn and tired out as usual, and while his wife expressed her views, he held his little treasure--his darling Pollypod--close to his breast. He had a very perfect love for his child.
"All right--old woman," he said, in his weary manner, when his wife had finished. "Go. It will be--a holiday for you."
"And Polly?" said Mrs. Podmore "What shall I do with Polly?"
"What shall you do--with Pollypod?" he repeated drowsily, hugging the child. "Take her with you. It will be a treat--for her. My Pollypod! She'll smell--the country--and see--the sun." He was falling off to sleep, when he pulled himself up suddenly, and said, "And look here--old woman! Don't bother about--my dinner. I'll make shift--somehow."
"Lord bless you, Jim!" exclaimed Mrs. Podmore: "I shall have a nice meat-pudden for you. My man ain't going without his dinner."
So it was settled, and when Mrs. Podmore, the next morning, spoke of it to old Wheels, he was grateful for the attention, and said there would be plenty of room in the coach for them all. Mrs. Podmore's great difficulty was a black dress to go in; she could not go in a coloured dress, and could not afford to buy a new one. But on the day of the funeral she made her appearance in black, having borrowed her plumes of a neighbour who was in mourning; Pollypod went in colours.
As they had nearly twenty miles to go, the coach was at the door early in the morning. All the neighbours round about came into the street to gaze at it and the mourners. They stood and talked in whispers. Their sympathy was chiefly reserved for Lily and the coffin. "Hush-sh-sh! There's the coffin. Hush-sh-sh!" as if their very whispers might disturb the dead. Then, when Lily came out, the women shook their heads, and said, "Poor dear! Poor dear! How pale she is! Ah, she didn't look like that the other night at the White Rose." Presently they expressed surprise because the children were going, but said, a moment afterwards, "Ah, well, it will be a nice ride for them."
Gribble junior's father, master of the chandler-shop, and foe to co-operation, having been assured by his son that his late lodger was not to be buried by co-operation, also patronised the starting of the funeral with his presence. He had a corrugated face, not unlike the outside of an old walnut-shell, and it would have been difficult to have persuaded him that there was hope of salvation for the deceased if the coffin had been a co-operative production.
The party being large a one, a coach of an extra size had been provided. Gribble junior rode outside the coach, with the driver; the others, each mother with her child on her lap, and the coffin, were inside. He liked his position on the box, and thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony. As he sat there, he looked round with a sad gentle smile upon his neighbours. The day was fine, and the coach moved slowly through the narrow streets, as was befitting and proper. Common as the sight is, everybody turns his head or pauses for a moment to look at a coach with a coffin in it. Women come to the windows and gaze at it with a kind of quiet fascination; dirty children suspend their games and stand in admiration at the corners of the streets; idle shopkeepers come to their doors in their aprons; and mothers bring their babies to see the coach go by--truly suggestive of the cradle and the grave. Gribble junior relished this attention on the part of the public. He took it in some measure as a tribute to himself, and even derived satisfaction from the thought that many of the persons who stopped and gazed must believe him to be a near relative of the deceased. He was as little of a hypocrite as it is in the nature of human beings to be, but he deemed it necessary to his position to assume a mournful demeanour; and he did so accordingly, and sighed occasionally. When the coach got away from the narrow streets, it moved faster. Gribble junior had brought a Cambridge blue-silk umbrella with him, which, however, he did not open on the journey. He and his wife and Mrs. Podmore enjoyed the ride amazingly. To escape for a few hours from the narrow labyrinths of Soho was good; to get into a little open country where grass and flowers were growing and blooming was better; and to see bright colour come to the children's cheeks and bright sparkles to their eyes was best of all. It was as Mr. Podmore said, a treat for them. The wives had brought sandwiches and bread-and-butter with them, and water in ginger-beer bottles. (Gribble junior, outside the coach, had two bottles filled with beer--four-penny ale--which he and the driver drank and enjoyed.) The women offered part of their refreshments to the relatives of the dead woman, but not one of the mourners could eat. In the early part of the journey, little Pollypod was inclined to show her enjoyment of the ride somewhat demonstratively, but Mrs. Podmore whispered to the child, "Hush, Polly dear! Lily's mother's in there!" pointing to the coffin. Pollypod had blue eyes, very bright, though not very large; but the brightness went out of them and they grew larger as she learned this fact and looked at the coffin. A little while afterwards, having watched and waited and debated the point with herself, without being able to come to a satisfactory conclusion, Pollypod asked why Lily's mother did not get out of the box.
"Iwould!" said Pollypod. "If I was shut up there, I'd cry, and you'd let me out; wouldn't you? Wicked box! Father couldn't play with me if I was shut up in you!" And listened and wondered why the clay in the coffin did not cry to escape.
Once during the ride, Lily nursed Polly for comfort, and the child, with her lips to Lily's ear, said,
"Lily, I want to know!"
It was one of Pollypod's peculiarities that she was always wanting to know.
"Well, Polly?"
"Was Lily's mother naughty?"
"O, no, Polly! O, no!"
"What is she shut up in the box for, then?"
"She is gone from us, Polly dear."
"Wasyounaughty, Lily?" continued the inquisitive little Pollypod; "and isthatthe reason why she's gone?"
"No, Polly, dear."
"What is the reason, then, Lily?" inquired the pertinacious little maid. "I want to know."
"God has taken her, Polly," said Lily, in a tearful voice.
"Where has God taken her to, Lily?"
"There!" pointing upwards.
What did the matter-of-fact little maid do, there and then, but go to the window, and look into the bright sky for Lily's mother? Mrs. Podmore kept her there, and whispered to her that poor Lily was not well and must not be teased. But the child, at intervals, turned her perplexed eyes to the coffin and then to the beautiful clouds, not at all satisfied in her mind, and with all her heart "wanting to know."
At length the ride, weary to some and pleasant to some, was over, and they were in the churchyard and by the grave. There a man, taking old Wheels aside, spoke a few words to him. An expression of amazement, almost of horror, came into the old man's face.
"It is impossible!" he exclaimed, in a tone of uncontrollable agitation. "Here--beneath God's sky!--Surely you are mistaken."
The man replied that there was no mistake.
"Where is the minister?" inquired the old man. "Is that his house? I will go and see him. Come, children, come with me."
And leaving his friends by the grave, the old man, followed by his grandchildren, walked swiftly to the house of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
When the relatives of the dead woman entered the gloomy study, Felix, seeing a tender girl among them, offered Lily a chair. She bowed without looking into his face, and although she did not sit down, she rested her hand upon the chair, as if she needed support. If the thoughts which animated the minds of the five persons in that sombre study had been laid bare, the strangest of contrasts would have been seen. There sat the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell; behind him was his son. They were at variance with one another, and each felt himself so much in the other's way, that if it had not been for the tie of kinship that bound them, their opposing natures would have led to the plain expression of scorn and contempt on the one side, and of harsh and bitter condemnation on the other.
There stood the delicate girl, whose nerves during the last few days had been strung to the highest point of which her nature was capable. A pure and tender lily indeed, as graceful as the flower from which she derived her name, and whose white bells, as they arch among the vivid leaves of green, tremble in the lightest breath from zephyr's mouth. It was so with Lily at this time. A harsh word would have caused her to quiver with pain. The effect which the suddenness of her mother's death, and the terrifying dreams that followed, had produced upon her had not passed away. Like the lily she stood there, dependent upon surrounding things almost for very life itself; kind looks and sweet words gladdened her and helped to make her strong, as kind sunshine and sweet breezes gladden and make strong the flower. And like the flower, the light in which she stood seemed to come from inward brightness and purity.
Her brother Alfred stood by her side. What was stirring in his mind? Well, it was the day on which the Northumberland Plate was run for at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne races. The race was over by this time. Had Christopher Sly won? He trembled to think that it might have been beaten--had come in second, perhaps; had lost "by a head." If it had, there was woe in store for him. If he were in London, he would know; this uncertainty was torturing. Now he was in the depth of misery: Christopher Sly had lost, and he had to pay money, and to make money good, out of an empty purse. Now he was in the height of gladness: the horsecouldnot lose--every one of the prophets had said so; Christopher Sly had won, and everything was right. It was like a reprieve from death.
Lastly, the grandfather. What his thoughts were will be shown in words. A strange and unexpected trouble had been added to his grief, and his handsome thoughtful face showed traces of perplexed anxiety.
When Felix had offered Lily a chair, the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell had killed the proffered courtesy with an irritable wave of his hand, which expressed, "You will not presume to sit in my presence." In everything that Felix did he found cause for anger, and he believed that his son was animated by a distinct wish to thwart and oppose him; this very proffered courtesy to one of these persons was another argument in his mind against Felix. Marble in the hands of a sympathetic worker was more capable of tenderness and gentleness than was the face of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell as he sat in his arm-chair and waited for the intruders to speak.
"My name, sir, is Verity," commenced the old man, in a humble and respectful voice.
"So I understand," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in a hard and cold voice.
Lily shivered as the harshly-spoken words fell upon her ears.
"These are my grandchildren," indicating Lily and Alfred.
"A gentleman," thought Felix, as he followed the courteous action of the old man.
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell received the intimation with a scarcely perceptible nod, and a colder chill came upon Lily's sensitive spirit as she raised her eyes to the dark face of the minister.
"They are the children of my dead daughter," continued the old man, "who before she died expressed a wish to be buried in the place which had been familiar to her in her younger and happier days."
"These details are scarcely necessary, I should say. What are you here for?"
The old man's agitation was so great that he was compelled to pause before he answered; but strength seemed to come to him as he looked at the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's stony face.
"The mother of these children is waiting in the churchyard to be buried."
"You received my message, I have no doubt."
"Some words were spoken to me as coming from you."
"Were not they sufficient?"
"I could not believe, sir, that the words which were delivered to me came from the lips of a minister of God."
A flash of something very like anger lighted up the small eyes of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"And so you come here to revile His minister?"
"I come here in all humility, sir," replied the old man.
"Do you wish me to repeat the message?"
"I wish to know, sir, that I have been mistaken. I cannot believe that what I have been told is true."
"It is the evil of the ungodly that they cannot answer straight. Do you wish me to repeat the message?"
"Yes, sir."
"It is very simple. My intimation was to the effect that I cannot perform any service over the deceased woman."
"The prayers for the dead—" exclaimed the old man imploringly.
"Are not for her!" said the minister, finishing the sentence sternly.
At these dreadful words Felix started forward to Lily's side; the young girl was trembling, and he feared she was about to fall. Indeed she would have fallen, but for his helping hand. Inward fire possessed the soul of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell at the action of his son and his wrath was expressed in his face. Felix saw it, but did not heed it; his lips were firmly set as he yielded Lily to her grandfather's arms, who, as he bent over her, murmured,
"I would have spared you the pain, my darling! But I thought that your helplessness and your innocent face would have pleaded for us."
Then he turned to the minister. "Why do you refuse to perform the last rites over the body of my daughter?"
"I am mistaken if you have not been informed. Her parents were members of the Wesleyan Methodist body, and the woman was not baptized in the Church of England. Therefore I cannot say prayers over her."
"Is that God's law?"
"It is mine!" replied the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with inconsiderate haste. If, when he heard the rejoinder, he could have caused the old man to fall into dust at his feet, he would have done so.
"You say truly, sir," said the old man, in a tone of bitter calmness. "It is not God's law; it is yours."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell shaded his face with his hand; he did not choose that the feeling there expressed should be seen. He knew, by his son's sympathetic movement towards Lily, that Felix had gone over to the enemy, and a consciousness possessed him that Felix was not displeased at his discomfiture. Still it was his duty to assert himself, and he did so accordingly in severe measured terms, and in tones utterly devoid of feeling.
"I have already told you that you came here to revile--to revile God through His minister. It is such as you who set men's minds afire, and drive them into the pit."
But the old man interrupted him with,
"Nay, sir, do not let us argue; I at least have no time. A dead woman is waiting for me. I must go and seek a minister who will say prayers over the poor clay. Come, my children."
"To seek a minister!" echoed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "What minister?"
"A Methodist minister, as that is your will."
"Presumptuous!" exclaimed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in wrath so pious that a colour came to his usually pale face. "No Methodist minister can be allowed to pray inmychurchyard!"--with a protecting look and motion of his fingers towards the ground where the dead lay--a look which said, "Fear not! My lips have blessed you; my prayers have sanctified you. Ye shall not be defiled!"
"How, then, is my daughter to be buried?" asked the old man, with his hand to his heart.
"The woman must be buried in silence," replied the minister.
As if in sympathy with the words, a dark cloud passed across the face of the sun, and the sunbeam, with its myriad wonders, vanished on the instant, while the truant flashes of light that were playing in the corners of the room darted gladly away to places where light was.
The old man bowed his head, and the words came slowly from his trembling lips.
"Cruel! Unjust! Wicked!" he said. "Bitterly, bitterly wicked! Do we not all worship the same God? What has this innocent clay done, that holy words may not fall upon the earth that covers her? What have we done, that the last consolation of prayer shall be denied to us?" Then looking the minister steadily in the face, he said in a firm voice, "According to your deserts may you be judged! According to your deserts may you, who set your law above God's, and call yourself His priest, be dealt with when your time comes!"
Turning, he was about to go, when the voice of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell stopped him.
"Now that you have done your reviling, attend to me for a few moments. You lived in this parish once?"
"Twenty years ago," replied the old man. "All my life up to that time--I and my poor daughter. There will be some here who will remember me."
"I remember you myself. You had a son?"
"No; I had but one child, she who lies yonder."
"Psha! it is the same--you had a son-in-law—"
The old man looked up with apprehensive eagerness, and Alfred, who had hitherto been perfectly passive--having indeed for most of the time been engrossed in torturing himself about Christopher Sly and the Northumberland Plate--made a sudden movement forward. The old man laid his hand upon his grandson's arm, cautioning him to silence.
"The father of these young persons," continued the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "Where is he?"
"Alfred," exclaimed the old man, "take Lily away. It is too close for her here. I will join you presently outside."
Indeed, Lily was almost fainting. The long weary ride, the abstention from food for so many hours, and the sufferings she had experienced during the dialogue between her grandfather and the minister, had been too much for her strength. Seeing her weak state, Felix stepped forward to assist Alfred, and presently they were in the porch.
"Stay one moment, I pray," exclaimed Felix hurriedly; "only a moment."
He darted into the house, and brought out a chair.
"There!" he said. "Let her sit here for a minute or two. It will do her good. The sun is the other side of us."
It is a fact that Felix, with quick instinct, had selected this place as being likely to revive the girl. They were out of the glare of the sun.
"Now, if you will oblige me and not let her move," he said in the same hurried eager tone, "you will lay me under an obligation that I shall never be able to pay."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he was upstairs, in his own room, tearing open his valise; he scattered the things wildly about, and came flying down again, with a fine white handkerchief and a bottle of Cologne water in his hand. He poured the liquid upon the handkerchief, and, with a delicate consideration, handed it to Alfred.
"Bathe her forehead with it; place it on her forehead, so. Now blow gently--gently. Let me!"
He blew upon the handkerchief, and the deliciously cool breeze revived the fainting girl. She looked gratefully into his face, which turned crimson beneath her gaze. But his task was not yet completed, it seemed. He took from his pocket a flask, which he had also found in his valise. There was a little silver cup attached to the flask, and he poured a golden liquid into it.
"Taste this; it will do you good. Nay, put your lips to it; there's no harm in it. Your brother will drink first to show you how reviving it is."
His voice was like a fountain; there was something so hearty, and frank, and good in it, that it refreshed her. Alfred emptied the silver cup, and her eyes brightened.
"Take a little, Lily," he said; "itwilldo you good."
She drank a little, and felt stronger at once.
"Where's grandfather?" she asked then.
"He will be with you presently," replied Felix. "I am going into him. I will tell him to come to you. But before I go," and here his voice faltered, and became more earnest, "I want you to say that you forgive me for any pain that you may have felt in--in there," pointing in the direction of the room they had left.
"Forgive you!" said Lily, in surprise. "Why, you have been kind to us It was not you who said those dreadful words to grandfather. There is nothing to forgive in you."
"There is much to forgive," said Felix impetuously; "much, very much, if it be true that the sins of the father shall be visited on the children. I am in that state of remorse that I feel as if I had been the cause of your suffering and your pain."
"Nay, you must not think that," she said, in a very gentle voice; "I am not well, and we have come a long, long way."
"Well, but humour my whim," he persisted; "it will please me. Say, 'I forgive you.'"
"I forgive you," she said, with a sad sweet smile.
"Thank you," he said gravely, and touched her hand: and as he walked into the house again, and into the study where his father and old Wheels were, Lily's sad smile lingered with him, and made him, it may be presumed, more unreasonably remorseful.
While this scene was being enacted outside the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's house, the conversation between the minister and old Wheels was proceeding. When Lily was out of the room, the old man said,
"Will you please detain me here as short a time as possible, sir, as we have much to do and far to go?"
"I will not detain you long," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in the tone of a man who is about to smite his enemy on the hip; "possibly you would not have remained, had you not been curious to know what I have to say respecting your son-in-law."
"Possibly not, sir; you may guess the reason why I wished the tender girl who was here just now not to be present while you spoke."
"Because I might say something unpleasant. Well, it is not a creditable story. Searching among the papers of a deceased man, having warranty to do so, his effects being the property of my son, I came upon this paper. It recites a singular story of an embezzlement, which took place--let me see; ah, yes--which took place nearly eighteen years ago. You know the story, probably?"
"There are so many stories of embezzlement. Is my name mentioned?"
"Otherwise I should not have spoken of the matter to you. After reciting the manner of the embezzlement and the name of the criminal, it speaks of intercession by you on his behalf, and how, somewhat out of compassion and somewhat out of policy, criminal proceedings were withheld. You undertook to repay the money, and after the payment of one large sum, dates are set down on which smaller sums were paid on account from time to time."
"Anything to deny?" asked the minister.
At this point Felix entered the room.
"Nothing to deny. The story is true."
"And you," exclaimed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell loftily, "the father of a criminal who should be expiating his crime in prison, presume to lift your voice against me! Truly, I should but be doing my duty to society if I were to make the matter public."
"Do I understand that the man from whom the money was embezzled is dead?"
"He is dead."
"There is a balance still due," said old Wheels; "one hundred pounds. Has he left the claim to any one?"
"My son is heir to the property," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"Your son!" There were traces of disappointment in the old man's voice as he looked at Felix. "Is this he?"
"This is he."
"You shall be repaid, sir," said the old man humbly to Felix, "to the last farthing." Felix, who had stood before the old man with head inclined, turned away abruptly at these words, and looked out of window. "It is but just," continued the old man in firm and gentle tones, "that you and he should know, that no one was to blame but the unfortunate man who committed the crime--for crime it was undoubtedly, although the law judged it not. The children who were here awhile ago were babes at the time, and it was to save all of us from shame and misery that I undertook to repay the money. I have been all my life paying it, as you may see by the statement in your hand. I did not know that such a document was in existence. I have a signed quittance for the money at home, and have had from the time I paid the first instalment, which, as you see, was large enough to wipe off at once three-fourths of the debt. But the moral claim remained and remains. It is my pride to think that some part of my dear granddaughter's earnings have gone towards the clearing of her father's shame, of which, up to the present moment, she has never heard. Depend upon it, sir, the balancer that remains shall be faithfully paid. Have you anything farther to say to me?"
"Nothing farther. You can go."
The old man lingered as though he were wishful to say a word to Felix; but that young gentleman, standing with his back to him, gave him no opportunity, and he left the study in silence. Then the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell rose and, paced the room, indulging in bitter meditations. It had been an unfortunate afternoon for him; everything but this last small triumph had gone wrong with him; he had been crossed, almost defied, at every turn. First, his son; then, this presumptuous old man, whose words were still burning in his mind. And his son's silence now irritated him. Every moment added to his irritation. Felix, standing with his face to the window, looking out upon the churchyard, and upon the figures of the old man and his grandchildren walking towards the grave, showed no disposition to move or to speak. In the eyes of his father this implied disrespect. He was not destitute of a certain decision of character, and in harsh tones he called upon Felix, to speak.
"I have been considering, sir," said Felix. "I ask your pardon for keeping you waiting."
"Considering what?" demanded the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"The proposition you made to me before these persons intruded upon us. You offered me a shelter here, until I determined upon a profession.
"On the express understanding that you conform to my rules."
"I do not forget, sir. Those were your very words. Will you permit me?" He took from the table the document which had been referred to in the conversation that had lately taken place. "And this old man has been all his life paying a debt for which he was not liable! There is hope yet for human nature, sir." A queer smile came upon his lips as he uttered these words in a half-gentle, half-bantering tone.
"Speak plainly," was the stern rejoinder of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"I will try to do so. My uncle left a request that all his papers should be burnt, and I am my uncle's heir. Why was this preserved?"
"You have heard: for your good. It is worth money to you. The man admits the claim."
"Money!" exclaimed Felix, with a light laugh, in which there was bitterness: "But the dead must be obeyed."
He went to the fireplace, struck a match, and applied the light to the paper. The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with face white with anger, watched the burning of the paper. Felix let the ashes fall into the fender, and tapped his fingers lightly together, with the air of one wiping away a soil.
"So!" he said. "I wash my hands of that."
"You know what you have done?" said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, placing his hand upon the table to steady himself.
"Yes, sir," answered, Felix gravely; "I shall never trouble you again."
Then he left the room quietly and sadly.