Mr. Scarborough again sent for Mr. Grey, but a couple of weeks passed before he came. At first he refused to come, saying that he would send his clerk down if any work were wanted such as the clerk might do. And the clerk did come and was very useful. But Mr. Scarborough persevered, using arguments which Mr. Grey found himself unable at last to resist. He was dying, and there would soon be an end of it. That was his strongest argument. Then it was alleged that a lawyer of experience was certainly needed, and that Mr. Scarborough could not very well put his affairs into the hands of a stranger. And old friendship was brought up. And, then, at last, the squire alleged that there were other secrets to be divulged respecting his family, of which Mr. Scarborough thought that Mr. Grey would approve. What could be the "other secrets?" But it ended in Mr. Grey assenting to go, in opposition to his daughter's advice. "I would have nothing more to do with him or his secrets," Dolly had said.
"You do not know him."
"I know as much about him as a woman can know of a man she doesn't know,—and all from yourself. You have said over and over again that he is a 'rascal!'"
"Not a rascal. I don't think I said he was a rascal."
"I believe you used that very word."
"Then I unsay it. A rascal has something mean about him. Juniper's a rascal!"
"He cares nothing for his word."
"Nothing at all,—when the law is concerned."
"And he has defamed his own wife."
"That was done many years ago."
"For a fixed purpose, and not from passion," Dolly continued. "He is a thoroughly bad man. You have made his will for him, and now I would leave him." After that Mr. Grey declined for a second time to go. But at last he was persuaded.
On the evening of his arrival he dined with Mountjoy and Merton, and on that occasion Miss Scarborough joined them. Of course there was much surmise as to the cause of this farther visit. Merton declared that, as he had acted as the sick man's private secretary, he was bound to keep his secret as far as he knew it. He only surmised what he believed to be the truth, but of that he could say nothing. Miss Scarborough was altogether in the dark. She, and she alone, spoke of her brother with respect, but in that she knew nothing.
"I cannot tell what it is," said Mountjoy; "but I suspect it to be something intended for my benefit and for the utter ruin of Augustus." Miss Scarborough had now retired. "If it could be possible, I should think that he intended to declare that all he had said before was false." To this, however, Mr. Grey would not listen. He was very stout in denying the possibility of any reversion of the decision to which they had all come. Augustus was, undoubtedly, by law his father's eldest son. He had seen with his own eyes copies of the registry of the marriage, which Mr. Barry had gone across the Continent to make. And in that book his wife had signed her maiden name, according to the custom of the country. This had been done in the presence of the clergyman and of a gentleman,—a German, then residing on the spot, who had himself been examined, and had stated that the wedding, as a wedding, had been regular in all respects. He was since dead, but the clergyman who had married them was still alive. Within twelve months of that time Mr. Scarborough and his bride had arrived in England, and Augustus had been born. "Nothing but the most indisputable evidence would have sufficed to prove a fact by which you were so cruelly wronged," he said, addressing himself to Mountjoy. "And when your father told me that no wrong could be done to you, as the property was hopelessly in the hands of the Jews, I told him that, for all purposes of the law, the Jews were as dear to me as you were. I do say that nothing but the most certain facts would have convinced me. Such facts, when made certain, are immovable. If your father has any plot for robbing Augustus, he will find me as staunch a friend to Augustus as ever I have been to you." When he had so spoken they separated for the night, and his words had been so strong that they had altogether affected Mountjoy. If such were his father's intentions, it must be by some farther plot that he endeavored to carry it out: and in his father's plots he would put no trust whatever.
And yet he declared his own purpose as he discussed the matter, late into the night, with Merton. "I cannot trust Grey at all, nor my father either, because I do not believe, as Grey believes, this story of the marriage. My father is so clever, and so resolute in his purpose to set aside all control over the property as arranged by law, that to my mind it has all been contrived by himself. Either Mr. Barry has been squared, or the German parson, or the foreign gentleman, or more probably all of them. Mr. Grey himself may have been squared, for all I know, though he is the kindest-hearted gentleman I ever came across. Anything shall be more probable to me than that I am not my father's eldest son." To all this Mr. Merton said very little, though no doubt he had his own ideas.
The next morning the three gentlemen, with Mr. Grey's clerk, sat down to breakfast, solemn and silent. The clerk had been especially entreated to say nothing of what he had learned, and was therefore not questioned by his master. But in truth he had learned but little, having spent his time in the sorting and copying of letters which, though they all bore upon the subject in hand, told nothing of the real tale. Farther surmises were useless now, as at eleven o'clock Mr. Grey and Mr. Merton were to go up together to the squire's room. The clerk was to remain within call, but there would be no need of Mountjoy. "I suppose I may as well go to bed," said he, "or up to London, or anywhere." Mr. Grey very sententiously advised him at any rate not to go up to London.
The hour came, and Mr. Grey, with Merton and the clerk, disappeared up-stairs. They were summoned by Miss Scarborough, who seemed to feel heavily the awful solemnity of the occasion. "I am sure he is going to do something very dreadful this time," she whispered to Mr. Grey, who seemed himself to be a little awe-struck, and did not answer her.
At two o'clock they all met again at lunch and Mr. Grey was silent, and in truth very unhappy. Merton and the clerk were also silent, as was Miss Scarborough,—silent as death. She, indeed, knew nothing, but the other three knew as much as Mr. Scarborough could or would tell them. Mountjoy was there also, and in the middle of the meal broke out violently: "Why the mischief don't you tell me what it is that my father has said to you?"
"Because I do not believe a word of his story," said Mr. Grey.
"Oh, Mr Grey!" ejaculated Miss Scarborough.
"I do not believe a word of his story," repeated Mr. Grey. "Your father's intelligence is so high, and his principles so low, that there is no scheme which he does not think that he cannot carry out against the established laws of his country. His present tale is a made-up fable."
"What do you say, Merton?" asked Mountjoy.
"It looks to me to be true," said Merton. "But I am no lawyer."
"Why don't you tell me what it is?" said Mountjoy.
"I cannot tell you," said Grey, "though he commissioned me to do so. Greenwood there will tell you." Greenwood was the name of the clerk. "But I advise you to take him with you to your own room. And Mr. Merton would, I am sure, go with you. As for me, it would be impossible that I should do credit in the telling of it to a story of which I do not believe a single word."
"Am I not to know?" asked Miss Scarborough, plaintively.
"Your nephew will tell you," said Mr. Grey,—"or Mr. Merton; or Mr. Greenwood can do so, if he has permission from Mr. Scarborough. I would rather tell no one. It is to me incredible." With that he got up and walked away.
"Now then, Merton," said Mountjoy, rising from his chair.
"Upon my word I hardly know what to do," said Merton.
"You must come and tell me this wonderful tale. I suppose that in some way it does affect my interests?"
"It affects your interests very much."
"Then I think I may say that I certainly shall believe it. My father at present would not wish to do me an injury. It must be told, so come along. Mr. Greenwood had better come also." Then he left the room, and the two men followed him. They went away to the smoking-room, leaving Mr. Grey with Miss Scarborough. "Am I to know nothing about it?" said Miss Scarborough.
"Not from me, Miss Scarborough. You can understand, that I cannot tell you a story which will require at every word that I should explain my thorough disbelief in your brother. I have been very angry with him, and he has been more energetic than can have been good for him."
"Ah me! you will have killed him among you!"
"It has been his own doing. You, however, had better go to him. I must return to town this evening."
"You will stay for dinner?"
"No. I cannot stay for dinner. I cannot sit down with Mountjoy,—who has done nothing in the least wrong,—because I feel myself to be altogether opposed to his interests. I would rather be out of the house." So saying he did leave the house, and went back to London by train that afternoon.
The meeting that morning, which had been very stormy, cannot be given word by word. From the moment in which the squire had declared his purpose, the lawyer had expressed his disbelief in all that was said to him. This Mr. Scarborough had at first taken very kindly; but Mr. Grey clung to his purpose with a pertinacity which had at last beaten down the squire's good-humor, and had called for the interference of Mr. Merton. "How can I be quiet?" the squire had said, "when he tells me everything I say is a lie?"
"It is a lie!" said Mr. Grey, who had lost all control of himself.
"You should not say that, Mr. Grey," said Merton.
"He should spare a man on his death-bed, who is endeavoring to do his duty by his children," said the man who thus declared himself to be dying.
"I will go away," said Mr. Grey, rising. "He has forced me to come here against my will, and has known,—must have known,—that I should tell him what I thought. Even though a man be dying, a man cannot accept what he says on a matter of business such as this unless he believe him. I must tell him that I believe him or that I do not. I disbelieve the whole story, and will not act upon it as though I believed it." But even after this the meeting was continued, Mr. Grey consenting to sit there and to hear what was said to the end.
The purport of Mr. Scarborough's story will probably have been understood by our readers. It was Mr. Scarborough's present intention to make it understood that the scheme intended for the disinheritance of Mountjoy had been false from the beginning to the end, and had been arranged, not for the injury of Mountjoy, but for the salvation of the estate from the hands of the Jews. Mountjoy would have lost nothing, as the property would have gone entirely to the Jews had Mr. Scarborough then died, and Mountjoy been taken as his legitimate heir. He was not anxious, he had declared, to say anything on the present occasion in defence of his conduct in that respect. He would soon be gone, and he would leave men to judge him who might do so the more honestly when they should have found that he had succeeded in paying even the Jews in full the moneys which they had actually advanced. But now things were again changed, and he was bound to go back to the correct order of things.
"No!" shouted Mr. Grey.
"To the correct order of things," he went on. Mountjoy Scarborough was, he declared, undoubtedly legitimate. And then he made Merton and the clerk bring forth all the papers, as though he had never brought forth any papers to prove the other statement to Mr. Grey. And he did expect Mr. Grey to believe them. Mr. Grey simply put them all back, metaphorically, with his hand. There had been two marriages, absolutely prepared with the intent of enabling him at some future time to upset the law altogether, if it should seem good to him to do so.
"And your wife?" shouted Mr. Grey.
"Dear woman! She would have done anything that I told her,—unless I had told her to do what was absolutely wrong."
"Not wrong!"
"Well, you know what I mean. She was the purest and best of women." Then he went on with his tale. There had been two marriages, and he now brought forth all the evidence of the former marriage. It had taken place in a remote town, a village in the northern part of Prussia, whither she had been taken by her mother to join him. The two ladies had both been since long dead. He had been laid up at the little Prussian town under the plea of a bad leg. He did not scruple to say now that the bad leg had been pretence, and a portion of his scheme. The law, he thought, in endeavoring to make arrangements for his property,—the property which should have been his own,—had sinned so greatly as to drive a wise man to much scheming. He had begun scheming early in the business. But for his bad leg the old lady would not have brought her daughter to be married at so out-of-the-way a place as Rummelsburg, in Pomerania. He had travelled about and found Rummelsburg peculiarly fitted for his enterprise. There was a most civil old Lutheran clergyman there, to whom he had made himself peculiarly acceptable. He had now certified copies of the registry at Rummelsburg, which left no loop-hole for doubt. But he had felt that probably no inquiry would have been made about what had been done thirty years ago at Rummelsburg, had he himself desired to be silent on the subject. "There will be no difficulty," he said, "in making the Rummelsburg marriage known to all the world."
"I think there will;—very great difficulty," Mr. Grey had said.
"Not the least. But when I had to be married in the light of day, after Mountjoy's birth, at Nice, in Italy, then there was the difficulty. It had to be done in the light of day; and that little traveller with his nurse were with us. Nice was in Italy then, and some contrivance was, I assure you, necessary. But it was done, and I have always had with me the double sets of certificates. As things have turned up, I have had to keep Mr. Grey altogether in the dark as regards Rummelsburg. It was very difficult; but I have succeeded."
That Mr. Grey should have been almost driven to madness by such an outrage as this was a matter of course. But he preferred to believe that Rummelsburg, and not Nice, was the myth. "How did your wife travel with you during the whole of that year?" he had asked.
"As Mrs. Scarborough, no doubt. But we had been very little in society, and the world at large seemed willing to believe almost anything of me that was wrong. However, there's the Rummelsburg marriage, and if you send to Rummelsburg you'll find that it's all right,—a little white church up a corner, with a crooked spire. The old clergyman is, no doubt, dead, but I should imagine that they would keep their registers." Then he explained how he had travelled about the world with the two sets of certificates, and had made the second public when his object had been to convert Augustus into his eldest son. Many people then had been found who had remembered something of the marriage at Nice, and remembered to have remembered something at the time of having been in possession of some secret as to the lady. But Rummelsburg had been kept quite in the dark. Now it was necessary that a strong light should be thrown on the absolute legality of the Rummelsburg marriage.
He declared that he had more than once made up his mind to destroy those Rummelsburg documents, but had always been deterred by the reflection that, when they were once gone, they could not be brought back again. "I had always intended," he had said, "to burn the papers the last thing before my death. But as I learned Augustus's character, I made quite certain by causing them to be sealed up in a parcel addressed to him, so that if I had died by accident they might have fallen into proper hands. But I see now the wickedness of my project, and, therefore, I give them over to Mr. Grey." So saying he tendered the parcel to the attorney.
Mr. Grey, of course, refused to take, or even to touch, the Rummelsburg parcel. He then prepared to leave the room, declaring it would be his duty to act on the part of Augustus, should Augustus be pleased to accept his services. But Mr. Scarborough, almost with tears, implored him to change his purpose. "Why should you set two brothers by the ears?" At this Mr. Grey only shook his head incredulously. "And why ruin the property without an object?"
"The property will come to ruin."
"Not if you will take the matter up in the proper spirit. But if you determine to drive one brother to hostility against the other, and promote unnecessary litigation, of course the lawyers will get it all." Then Mr. Grey left the room, boiling with anger in that he, with his legal knowledge and determination to do right, had been so utterly thrown aside; while Mr. Scarborough sank exhausted by the effort he had gone through.
Mr. Grey's feeling, as he returned home, was chiefly one of self-reproach; so that, though he persisted in not believing the story which had been told to him, he did, in truth, believe it. He believed, at any rate, in Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough had determined that the property should go hither and thither according to his will, without reference to the established laws of the land, and had carried, and would carry his purpose. His object had been to save his estate from the hands of those harpies, the money-lenders; and as far as he was concerned he would have saved it.
He had, in fact, forced the money-lenders to lend their money without interest and without security, and then to consent to accept their principal when it was offered to them. No one could say but that the deed when done was a good deed. But this man in doing it had driven his coach and horses through all the laws, which were to Mr. Grey as Holy Writ; and, in thus driving his coach and horses, he had forced Mr. Grey to sit upon the box and hold the reins. Mr. Grey had thought himself to be a clever man,—at least a well-instructed man; but Mr. Scarborough had turned him round his finger, this way and that way, just as he had pleased.
Mr. Grey when, in his rage, he had given the lie to Mr. Scarborough had, no doubt, spoken as he had believed at that moment. To him the new story must have sounded like a lie, as he had been driven to accept the veritable lie as real truth. He had looked into all the circumstances of the marriage at Nice, and had accepted it. He had sent his partner over, and had picked up many incidental confirmations. That there had been a marriage at Nice between Mr. Scarborough and the mother of Augustus was certain. He had traced back Mr. Scarborough's movements before the marriage, and could not learn where the lady had joined him who afterward became his wife; but it had become manifest to him that she had travelled with him, bearing his name. But in Vienna Mr. Barry had learned that Mr. Scarborough had called the lady by her maiden name. He might have learned that he had done so very often at other places; but it had all been done in preparation for the plot in hand,—as had scores of other little tricks which have not cropped up to the surface in this narrative.
Mr. Scarborough's whole life had been passed in arranging tricks for the defeat of the law; and it had been his great glory so to arrange them as to make it impossible that the law should touch him. Mountjoy had declared that he had been defrauded. The creditors swore, with many oaths, that they had been horribly cheated by this man. Augustus, no doubt, would so swear very loudly. No man could swear more loudly than did Mr. Grey as he left the squire's chamber after this last revelation. But there was no one who could punish him. The money-lenders had no writing under his hand. Had Mountjoy been born without a marriage-ceremony it would have been very wicked, but the vengeance of the law would not have reached him. If you deceive your attorney with false facts he cannot bring you before the magistrates. Augustus had been the most injured of all; but a son, though he may bring an action against his father for bigamy, cannot summon him before any tribunal because he has married his mother twice over. These were Mr. Scarborough's death-bed triumphs; but they were very sore upon Mr. Grey.
On his journey back to town, as he turned the facts over more coolly in his mind, he began to fear that he saw a glimmer of the truth. Before he reached London he almost thought that Mountjoy would be the heir. He had not brought a scrap of paper away with him, having absolutely refused to touch the documents offered to him. He certainly would not be employed again either by Mr. Scarborough or on behalf of his estate or his executors. He had threatened that he would take up the cudgels on behalf of Augustus, and had felt at the moment that he was bound to do so, because, as he had then thought, Augustus had the right cause. But as that idea crumbled away from him, Augustus and his affairs became more and more distasteful to him. After all, it ought to be wished that Mountjoy should become the elder son,—even Mountjoy, the incurable gambler. It was terrible to Mr. Grey that the old, fixed arrangement should be unfixed, and certainly there was nothing in the character of Augustus to reconcile him to such a change.
But he was a very unhappy man when he put himself into a cab to be carried down to Fulham. How much better would it have been for him had he taken his daughter's advice, and persistently refused to make this last journey to Tretton! He would have to acknowledge to his daughter that Mr. Scarborough had altogether got the better of him, and his unhappiness would consist in the bitterness of that acknowledgment.
But when he reached the Manor House his daughter met him with news of her own which for the moment kept his news in abeyance. "Oh, papa," she said, "I am so glad you've come!" He had sent her a telegram to say that he was coming. "Just when I got your message I was frightened out of my life. Who do you think was here with me?"
"How am I to think, my dear?"
"Mr. Juniper."
"Who on earth is Mr. Juniper?" he asked. "Oh, I remember;—Amelia's lover."
"Do you mean to say you forgot Mr. Juniper? I never shall forget him. What a horrid man he is!"
"I never saw Mr. Juniper in my life. What did he want of you?"
"He says you have ruined him utterly. He came here about two o'clock, and found me at work in the garden. He made his way in through the open gate, and would not be sent back though one of the girls told him that there was nobody at home. He had seen me, and I could not turn him out, of course."
"What did he say to you? Was he impudent?"
"He did not insult me, if you mean that; but he was impudent in not going away, and I could not get rid of him for an hour. He says that you have doubly ruined him."
"As how?"
"You would not let Amelia have the fortune that you promised her; and I think his object now was to get the fortune without the girl. And he said, also, that he had lent five hundred pounds to your Captain Scarborough."
"He is not my Captain Scarborough."
"And that when you were settling the captain's debts his was the only one you would not pay in full."
"He is a rogue,—an arrant rogue!"
"But he says that he's got the captain's name to the five hundred pounds; and he means to get it some of these days, now that the captain and his father are friends again. The long and the short of it is, that he wants five hundred pounds by hook or by crook, and that he thinks you ought to let him have it."
"He'll get it, or the greater part of it. There's no doubt he'll get it if he has got the captain's name. If I remember right, the captain did sign a note for him to that amount,—and he'll get the money if he has stuck to it."
"Do you mean that Captain Scarborough would pay all his debts?"
"He will have to pay that one, because it was not included in the schedule. What do you think has turned up now?"
"Some other scheme?"
"It is all scheming,—base, false scheming,—to have been concerned with which will be a disgrace to my name forever!"
"Oh, papa!"
"Yes; forever! He has told me, now, that Mountjoy is his true, legitimate, eldest son. He declares that that story which I have believed for the last eight months has been altogether false, and made out of his own brain to suit his own purposes. In order to enable him to defraud these money-lenders he used a plot which he had concocted long since, and boldly declared Augustus to be his heir. He made me believe it; and because I believed it, even those greedy, grasping men, who would not have given up a tithe of their prey to save the whole family, even they believed it too. Now, at the very point of death, he comes forward with perfect coolness, and tells me that the whole story was a plot made out of his own head."
"Do you believe him now?"
"I became very wroth, and said that it was a lie! I did think that it was a lie. I did flatter myself that in a matter concerning my own business, and in which I was bound to look after the welfare of others, he could not have so deceived me; but I find myself as a child—as a baby—in his hands."
"Then you do believe him now?"
"I am afraid so. I will never see him again, if it be possible for me to avoid him. He has treated me as no one should have treated his enemy, let alone a faithful friend. He must have scoffed and scorned at me merely because I had faith in his word. Who could have thought of a man laying his plots so deeply,—arranging for twenty years past the frauds which he has now executed? For thirty years, or nearly, his mind has been busy on these schemes, and on others, no doubt, which he has not thought it necessary to execute, and has used me in them simply as a machine. It is impossible that I should forgive him."
"And what will be the end of it?" she asked.
"Who can say? But this is clear. He has utterly destroyed my character as a lawyer."
"No. Nothing of the kind."
"And it will be well if he have not done so as a man. Do you think that when people hear that these changes have been made with my assistance they will stop to unravel it all, and to see that I have been only a fool and not a knave? Can I explain under what stress of entreaty I went down there on this last occasion?"
"Papa, you were quite right to go. He was your old friend, and he was dying."
Even for this he was grateful. "Who will judge me as you do,—you who persuaded me that I should not have gone? See how the world will use my name! He has made me a party to each of his frauds. He disinherited Mountjoy, and he forced me to believe the evidence he brought. Then, when Mountjoy was nobody, he half paid the creditors by means of my assistance."
"They got all they were entitled to get."
"No; till the law had decided against them, they were entitled to their bonds. But they, ruffians though they are, had advanced so much hard money, and I was anxious that they should get their hard money back again. But unless Mountjoy had been illegitimate,—so as to be capable of inheriting nothing,—they would have been cheated; and they have been cheated. Will it be possible that I should make them or make others think that I have had nothing to do with it? And Augustus, who will be open-mouthed,—what will he say against me? In every turn and double of the man's crafty mind I shall be supposed to have turned and doubled with him. I do not mind telling the truth about myself to you."
"I should hope not."
"The light that has guided me through my professional life has been a love of the law. As far as my small powers have gone, I have wished to preserve it intact. I am sure that the Law and Justice may be made to run on all-fours. I have been so proud of my country as to make that the rule of my life. The chance has brought me into the position of having for a client a man the passion of whose life has been the very reverse. Who would not say that for an attorney to have such a man as Mr. Scarborough, of Tretton, for his client, was not a feather in his cap? But I have found him to be not only fraudulent, but too clever for me. In opposition to myself he has carried me into his paths."
"He has never induced you to do anything that was wrong."
"'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You know it. But can I remain an attorney for you only? There are some of whom just the other thing is known; but then they look for work of the other kind. I have never put up a shop-board for sharp practice. After this the sharpest kind of practice will be all that I shall seem to be fit for. It isn't the money. I can retire with enough for your wants and for mine. If I could retire amid the good words of men I should be happy. But, even if I retire, men will say that I have filled my pockets with plunder from Tretton."
"That will never be said."
"Were I to publish an account of the whole affair,—which I am bound in honor not to do,—explaining it all from beginning to end, people would only say that I was endeavoring to lay the whole weight of the guilt upon my confederate who was dead. Why did he pick me out for such usage,—me who have been so true to him?"
There was something almost weak, almost feminine in the tone of Mr. Grey's complaints. But to Dolly they were neither feminine nor weak. To her her father's grief was true and well-founded; but for herself in her own heart there was some joy to be drawn from it. How would it have been with her if the sharp practice had been his, and the success? What would have been her state of mind had she known her father to have conceived these base tricks? Or what would have been her condition had her father been of such a kind as to have taught her that the doing of such tricks should be indifferent to her? To have been high above them all,—for him and for her,—was not that everything? And was she not sure that the truth would come to light at last? And if not here, would not the truth come to light elsewhere where light would be of more avail than here? Such was the consolation with which Dolly consoled herself.
On the next two days Mr. Grey went to his chambers and returned, without any new word as to Mr. Scarborough and his affairs. One day he did bring back some tidings as to Juniper. "Juniper has got into some row about a horse," he said, "and is, I fear, in prison. All the same, he'll get his five hundred pounds; and if he knew that fact it would help him."
"I can't tell him, papa. I don't know where he lives."
"Perhaps Carroll could do so."
"I never speak to Mr. Carroll. And I would not willingly mention Juniper's name to my aunt or to either of the girls. It will be better to let Juniper go on in his row."
"With all my heart," said Mr. Grey. And then there was an end of that.
On the next morning, the fourth after his return from Tretton, Mr. Grey received a letter from Mountjoy Scarborough. "He was sure," he said, "that Mr. Grey would be sorry to hear that his father had been very weak since Mr. Grey had gone, and unable even to see him, Mountjoy, for more than two or three minutes at a time. He was afraid that all would soon be over; but he and everybody around the squire had been surprised to find how cheerful and high-spirited he was. It seems," wrote Mountjoy, "as though he had nothing to regret, either as regards this world or the next. He has no remorse, and certainly no fear. Nothing, I think, could make him angry, unless the word repentance were mentioned to him. To me and to his sister he is unwontedly affectionate; but Augustus's name has not crossed his lips since you left the house." Then he went on to the matter as to which his letter had been written. "What am I to do when all is over with him? It is natural that I should come to you for advice. I will promise nothing about myself, but I trust that I may not return to the gambling-table. If I have this property to manage, I may be able to remain down here without going up to London. But shall I have the property to manage? and what steps am I to take with the view of getting it? Of course I shall have to encounter opposition, but I do not think that you will be one of those to oppose me. I presume that I shall be left here in possession, and that, they say, is nine points of the law. In the usual way I ought, I presume, simply to do nothing, but merely to take possession. The double story about the two marriages ought to count for nothing,—and I should be as though no such plots had ever been hatched. But they have been hatched, and other people know of them. The creditors, I presume, can do nothing. You have all the bonds in your possession. They may curse and swear, but will, I imagine, have no power. I doubt whether they have a morsel of ground on which to raise a lawsuit; for whether I or Augustus be the eldest son, their claims have been satisfied in full. But I presume that Augustus will not sit quiet. What ought I to do in regard to him? As matters stand at present he will not get a shilling. I fear my father is too ill to make another will. But at any rate he will make none in favor of Augustus. Pray tell me what I ought to do; and tell me whether you can send any one down to assist me when my father shall have gone."
"I will meddle no farther with anything in which the name of Scarborough is concerned." Such had been Mr. Grey's first assertion when he received Mountjoy's letter. He would write to him and tell him that, after what had passed, there could be nothing of business transacted between him and his father's estate. Nor was he in the position to give any advice on the subjects mooted. He would wash his hands of it altogether. But, as he went home, he thought over the matter and told himself that it would be impossible for him thus to repudiate the name. He would undertake no lawsuit either on behalf of Augustus or of Mountjoy. But he must answer Mountjoy's letter, and tender him some advice.
During the long hours of the subsequent night he discussed the whole matter with his daughter, and the upshot of his discussion was this:—that he would withdraw his name from the business, and leave Mr. Barry to manage it. Mr. Barry might then act for either party as he pleased.
All these things were not done at Tretton altogether unknown to Augustus Scarborough. Tidings as to the will reached him, and then he first perceived the injury he had done himself in lending his assistance to the payment of the creditors. Had his brother been utterly bankrupt, so that the Jews might have seized any money that might have come to him, his father would have left no will in his favor. All that was now intelligible to Augustus. The idea that his father should strip the house of every stick of furniture, and the estate of every chattel upon it, had not occurred to him before the thing was done.
He had thought that his father was indifferent to all personal offence, and therefore he had been offensive. He found out his mistake, and therefore was angry with himself. But he still thought that he had been right in regard to the creditors. Had the creditors been left in the possession of their unpaid bonds, they would have offered terrible impediments to the taking possession of the property. He had been right then, he thought. The fact was that his father had lived too long. However, the property would be left to him, Augustus, and he must make up his mind to buy the other things from Mountjoy. He at any rate would have to provide the funds out of which Mountjoy must live, and he would take care that he did not buy the chattels twice over. It was thus he consoled himself till rumors of something worse reached his ears.
How the rumors reached him it would be difficult to say. There were probably some among the servants who got an inkling of what the squire was doing when Mr. Grey again came down; or Miss Scarborough had some confidential friend; or Mr. Grey's clerk may have been indiscreet. The tidings in some unformed state did reach Augustus and astounded him. His belief in his father's story as to his brother's illegitimacy had been unfixed and doubtful. Latterly it had verged toward more thorough belief as the creditors had taken their money,—less than a third of what would have been theirs had the power remained with them of recovering their full debt. The creditors had thus proved their belief, and they were a people not likely to believe such a statement without some foundation. But at any rate he had conceived it to be impossible that his own father should go back from his first story, and again make himself out to be doubly a liar and doubly a knave.
But if it were so, what should he do? Was it not the case that in such event he would be altogether ruined,—a penniless adventurer with his profession absolutely gone from him? What little money he had got together had been expended on behalf of Mountjoy,—a sprat thrown out to catch a whale. Everything according to the present tidings had been left to Mountjoy. He had only half known his father, who had turned against him with virulence because of his unkindness. Who could have expected that a man in such a condition should have lived so long, and have been capable of a will so powerful? He had not dreamed of a hatred so inveterate as his father's for him.
He received news also from Tretton that his father was not now expected by any one to live long.
"It may be a week, the doctors say, and it is hardly possible that he should remain alive for another month." Such was the news which reached him from his own emissary at Tretton. What had he better do in the emergency of the moment?
There was only one possibly effective step that he could take. He might, of course, remain tranquil, and accept what chance might give him, when his father should have died. But he might at once go down to Tretton and demand an interview with the dying man. He did not think that his father, even on his death-bed, would refuse to see him. His father's pluck was indomitable, and he thought that he could depend on his own pluck. At any rate he resolved that he would immediately go to Tretton and take his chance. He reached the house about the middle of the day, and at once sent his name up to his father. Miss Scarborough was sitting by her brother's bedside, and from time to time was reading to him a few words. "Augustus!" he said, as soon as the servant had left the room. "What does Augustus want with me? The last time he saw me he bade me die out of hand if I wished to retrieve the injury I had done him."
"Do not think of that now, John," his sister said.
"As God is my judge, I will think of it to the last moment. Words such as those spoken, by a son to his father, demand a little thought. Were I to tell you that I did not think of them, would you not know that I was a hypocrite?"
"You need not speak of them, John."
"Not unless he came here to harass my last moments. I strove to do very much for him;—you know with what return. Mountjoy has been, at any rate, honest and straightforward; and, considering all things, not lacking in respect. I shall, at any rate, have some pleasure in letting Augustus know the state of my mind."
"What shall I say to him?" his sister asked.
"Tell him that he had better go back to London. I have tried them both, as few sons can be tried by their father, and I know them now. Tell him, with my compliments, that it will be better for him not to see me. There can be nothing pleasant said between us. I have no communication to make to him which could in the least interest him."
But before night came the squire had been talked over, and had agreed to see his son. "The interview will be easy enough for me," he had said, "but I cannot imagine what he will get from me. But let him come as he will."
Augustus spent much of the intervening time in discussing the matter with his aunt. But not a word on the subject was spoken by him to Mountjoy, whom he met at dinner, and with whom he spent the evening in company with Mr. Merton. The two hours after dinner were melancholy enough. The three adjourned to the smoking-room, and sat there almost without conversation. A few words were said about the hunting, but Mountjoy had not hunted this winter. There were a few also of greater interest about the shooting. The shooting was of course still the property of the old man, and in the early months had, without many words spoken, become, as it were, an appanage of the condition of life to which Augustus aspired; but of late Mountjoy had assumed the command. "You found plenty of pheasants here, I suppose," Augustus remarked.
"Well, yes; not too many. I didn't trouble myself much about it. When I saw a pheasant I shot it. I've been a little troubled in spirit, you know."
"Gambling again, I heard."
"That didn't trouble me much. Merton can tell you that we've had a sick-house."
"Yes, indeed," said Merton. "It hasn't seemed to be a time in which a man would think very much of his pheasants."
"I don't know why," said Augustus, who was determined not to put up with the rebuke implied in the doctor's words. After that there was nothing more said between them till they all went to their separate apartments. "Don't contradict him," his aunt said to him the next morning, "and if he reprimands you, acknowledge that you have been wrong."
"That's hard, when I haven't been wrong."
"But so much depends upon it; and he is so stern. Of course, I wish well for both of you. There is plenty enough,—plenty; if only you could agree together."
"But the injustice of his treatment. Is it true that he now declares Mountjoy to be the eldest son?"
"I believe so. I do not know, but I believe it."
"Think of what his conduct has been to me. And then you tell me that I am to own that I have been wrong! In what have I been wrong?"
"He is your father, and I suppose you have said hard words to him."
"Did I rebuke him because he had fraudulently kept me for so many years in the position of a younger son? Did I not forgive him that iniquity?"
"But he says you are a younger son."
"This last move," he said, with great passion, "has only been made in an attempt to punish me, because I would not tell him that I was under a world of obligations to him for simply declaring the truth as to my birth. We cannot both be his eldest son."
"No, certainly, not both."
"At last he declared that I was his heir. If I did say hard words to him, were they not justified?"
"Not to your father," said Miss Scarborough, shaking her head.
"That is your idea? How was I to abstain? Think what had been done to me. Through my whole life he had deceived me, and had attempted to rob me."
"But he says that he had intended to get the property for you."
"To get it! It was mine. According to what he said it was my own. He had robbed me to give it to Mountjoy. Now he intends to rob me again in order that Mountjoy may have it. He will leave such a kettle of fish behind him, with all his manoeuvring, that neither of us will be the better of Tretton."
Then he went to the squire. In spite of what had passed between him and his aunt, he had thought deeply of his conduct to his father in the past, and of the manner in which he would now carry himself. He was aware that he had behaved,—not badly, for that he esteemed nothing,—but most unwisely. When he had found himself to be the heir to Tretton he had fancied himself to be almost the possessor, and had acted on the instincts which on such a case would have been natural to him. To have pardoned the man because he was his father, and then to have treated him with insolent disdain, as some dying old man, almost entirely beneath his notice, was what he felt the nature of the circumstances demanded. And whether the story was true or false it would have been the same. He had come at last to believe it to be true, and had therefore been the more resolute; but, whether it were true or false, the old man had struck his blow, and he must abide by it. Till the moment came in which he had received that communication from Tretton, the idea had never occurred to him that another disposition of the property might still be within his father's power. But he had little known the old man's power, or the fertility of his resources, or the extent of his malice. "After what you have done you should cease to stay and disturb us," he had once said, when his father had jokingly alluded to his own death. He had at once repented, and had felt that such a speech had been iniquitous as coming from a son. But his father had, at the moment, expressed no deep animosity. Some sarcastic words had fallen from him of which Augustus had not understood the bitterness. But he had remembered it since, and was now not so much surprised at his father's wish to injure him as at his power.
But could he have any such power? Mr. Grey, he knew, was on his side, and Mr. Grey was a thorough lawyer. All the world was on his side,—all the world having been instructed to think and to believe that Mr. Scarborough had not been married till after Mountjoy was born. All the world had been much surprised, and would be unwilling to encounter another blow. Should he go into his father's room altogether penitent, or should he hold up his head and justify himself?
One thing was brought home to him, by thinking, as a matter of which he might be convinced. No penitence could now avail him anything. He had at any rate by this time looked sufficiently into his father's character to be sure that he would not forgive such an offence as had been his. Any vice, any extravagance, almost any personal neglect, would have been pardoned. "I have so brought him up," the father would have said, "and the fault must be counted as my own." But his son had deliberately expressed a wish for his father's death, and had expressed it in his father's presence. He had shown not only neglect, which may arise at a distance, and may not be absolutely intentional; but these words had been said with the purpose of wounding, and were, and would be, unpardonable. Augustus, as he went along the corridor to his father's room, determined that he would at any rate not be penitent.
"Well, sir, how do you find yourself?" he said, walking in briskly and putting out his hand to his father. The old man languidly gave his hand, but only smiled. "I hear of you, though not from you, and they tell me that you have not been quite so strong of late."
"I shall soon cease to stay and trouble you," said the squire, with affected weakness, in a voice hardly above a whisper, using the very words which Augustus had spoken.
"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been, unfortunately, unpleasant."
"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with you."
Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the truer insight to his father's character.
"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done much."
"Circumstances?"
"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."
"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."
"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper feeling, I regret it."
"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no hypocrisy, at any rate."
"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."
"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."
"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been driven to say what I did not feel."
"Certainly not to me."
"I'm not here to beg pardon for any special fault, as I do not quite know of what I am accused."
"Of nothing. There is no accusation at all."
"Nor what the punishment is to be. I have learned that you have left to Mountjoy all the furniture in the house."
"Yes, poor boy!—when I found that you had turned him out."
"I never turned him out,—not till your house was open to receive him."
"You would not have wished him to go into the poor-house?"
"I did the very best for him. I kept him going when there was no one else to give him a shilling."
"He must have had a bitter time," said the father. "I hope it may have done him good."
"I think I behaved to him just as an elder brother should have done. He was not particularly grateful, but that was not my fault."
"Still, I thought it best to leave him the old sticks about the place. As he was to have the property, it was better that he should have the sticks." As he said this he managed to turn himself round and look his son full in the face. Such a look as it was! There was the gleam of victory, and the glory of triumph, and the venom of malice. "You wouldn't have them separated, would you?"
"I have heard of some farther trick of this kind."
"Just the ordinary way in which things ought to be allowed to run. Mr. Grey, who is a very good man, persuaded me. No man ought to interfere with the law. An attempt in that direction led to evil. Mountjoy is the eldest son, you know."
"I know nothing of the kind."
"Oh dear, no! there is no question at all as to the date of my marriage with your mother. We were married in quite a straightforward way at Rummelsburg. When I wanted to save the property from those harpies, I was surprised to find how easily I managed it. Grey was a little soft there: an excellent man, but too credulous for a lawyer."
"I do not believe a word of it."
"You'll find it all go as naturally as possible when I have ceased to stay and be troublesome. But one thing I must say in your favor."
"What do you mean?"
"I never could have managed it all unless you had consented to that payment of the creditors. Indeed, I must say, that was chiefly your own doing. When you first suggested it, I saw what a fine thing you were contriving for your brother. I should think, after that, of leaving it all so that you need not find out the truth when I am dead. I do think I had so managed it that you would have had the property. Mountjoy, who has some foolish feeling about his mother, and who is obstinate as a pig, would have fought it out; but I had so contrived that you would have had it. I had sealed up every document referring to the Rummelsburg marriage, and had addressed them all to you. I couldn't have made it safer, could I?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"You would have been enabled to destroy every scrap of the evidence which will be wanted to prove your brother's legitimacy. Had I burned the papers I could not have put them more beyond poor Mountjoy's reach. Now they are quite safe in Mr. Grey's office; his clerk took them away with him. I would not leave them here with Mountjoy because,—well,—you might come, and he might be murdered!" Now Mr. Scarborough had had his revenge.
"You think you have done your duty," said Augustus.
"I do not care two straws about doing my duty, young man." Here Mr. Scarborough raised himself in part, and spoke in that strong voice which was supposed to be so deleterious to him. "Or rather, in seeking my duty, I look beyond the conventionalities of the world. I think that you have behaved damnably, and that I have punished you. Because of Mountjoy's weakness, because he had been knocked off his legs, I endeavored to put you upon yours. You at once turned upon me, when you thought the deed was done, and bade me go—and bury myself. You were a little too quick in your desire to become the owner of Tretton Park at once. I have stayed long enough to give some farther trouble. You will not say, after this, that I amnon compos, and unable to make a will. You will find that, under mine, not one penny-piece, not one scrap of property, will become yours. Mountjoy will take care of you, I do not doubt. He must hate you, but will recognize you as his brother. I am not so soft-hearted and will not recognize you as my son. Now you may go away." So saying, he turned himself round to the wall, and refused to be induced to utter another word. Augustus began to speak, but when he had commenced his second sentence the old man rung his bell. "Mary," said he to his sister, "will you have the goodness to get Augustus to go away? I am very weak, and if he remains he will be the death of me. He can't get anything by killing me at once; it is too late for that."
Then Augustus did leave the room, and before the night came had left Tretton also. He presumed there was nothing for him to do there. One word he did say to Mountjoy,—"You will understand, Mountjoy, that when our father is dead Tretton will not become your property."
"I shall understand nothing of the kind," said Mountjoy "but I suppose Mr. Grey will tell me what I am to do."