When Mr. Scarborough was left alone he did not go to sleep, as he had pretended, but lay there for an hour, thinking of his position and indulging to the full the feelings of anger which he now entertained toward his second son. He had never, in truth, loved Augustus. Augustus was very like his father in his capacity for organizing deceit, for plotting, and so contriving that his own will should be in opposition to the wills of all those around him. But they were thoroughly unlike in the object to be attained. Mr. Scarborough was not a selfish man. Augustus was selfish and nothing else. Mr. Scarborough hated the law,—because it was the law and endeavored to put a restraint upon him and others. Augustus liked the law,—unless when in particular points it interfered with his own actions. Mr. Scarborough thought that he could do better than the law. Augustus wished to do worse. Mr. Scarborough never blushed at what he himself attempted, unless he failed, which was not often the case. But he was constantly driven to blush for his son. Augustus blushed for nothing and for nobody. When Mr. Scarborough had declared to the attorney that just praise was due to Augustus for the nobility of the sacrifice he was making, Augustus had understood his father accurately and determined to be revenged, not because of the expression of his father's thoughts, but because he had so expressed himself before the attorney. Mr. Scarborough also thought that he was entitled to his revenge.
When he had been left alone for an hour he rung the bell, which was close at his side, and called for Mr. Merton. "Where is Mr. Grey?"
"I think he has ordered the wagonette to take him to the station."
"And where is Augustus?"
"I do not know."
"And Mr. Jones? I suppose they have not gone to the station. Just feel my pulse, Merton. I am afraid I am very weak." Mr. Merton felt his pulse and shook his head. "There isn't a pulse, so to speak."
"Oh yes; but it is irregular. If you will exert yourself so violently—"
"That is all very well; but a man has to exert himself sometimes, let the penalty be what it may. When do you think that Sir William will have to come again?" Sir William, when he came, would come with his knife, and his advent was always to be feared.
"It depends very much on yourself, Mr. Scarborough. I don't think he can come very often, but you can make the distances long or short. You should attend to no business."
"That is absolute rubbish."
"Nevertheless, it is my duty to say so. Whatever arrangements may be required, they should be made by others. Of course, if you do as you have done this morning, I can suggest some little relief. I can give you tonics and increase the amount; but I cannot resist the evil which you yourself do yourself."
"I understand all about it."
"You will kill yourself if you go on."
"I don't mean to go on any farther,—not as I have done to-day; but as to giving up business, that is rubbish. I have got my property to manage, and I mean to manage it myself as long as I live. Unfortunately, there have been accidents which make the management a little rough at times. I have had one of the rough moments to-day, but they shall not be repeated. I give you my word for that. But do not talk to me about giving up my business. Now I'll take your tonics, and then would you have the kindness to ask my sister to come to me?"
Miss Scarborough, who was always in waiting on her brother, was at once in the room. "Martha," he said, "where is Augustus?"
"I think he has gone out."
"And where is Mr. Septimus Jones?"
"He is with him, John. The two are always together."
"You would not mind giving my compliments to Mr. Jones, and telling him that his bedroom is wanted?"
"His bedroom wanted! There are lots of bedrooms, and nobody to occupy them."
"It's a hint that I want him to go; he'd understand that."
"Would it not be better to tell Augustus?" asked the lady, doubting much her power to carry out the instructions given to her.
"He would tell Augustus. It is not, you see, any objection I have to Mr. Jones. I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. He is a most agreeable young man, I'm sure; but I do not care to entertain an agreeable young man without having a word to say on the subject. Augustus does not think it worth his while even to speak to me about him. Of course, when I am gone, in a month or so,—perhaps a week or two,—he can do as he pleases."
"Don't, John!"
"But it is so. While I live I am master at least of this house. I cannot see Mr. Jones, and I do not wish to have another quarrel with Augustus. Mr. Merton says that every time I get angry it gives Sir William another chance with the knife. I thought that perhaps you could do it." Then Miss Scarborough promised that she would do it, and, having her brother's health very much at heart, she did do it. Augustus stood smiling while the message was, in fact, conveyed to him, but he made no answer. When the lady had done he bobbed his head to signify that he acknowledged the receipt of it, and the lady retired.
"I have got my walking-papers," he said to Septimus Jones ten minutes afterward.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you? Then you must be very thick-headed. My father has sent me word that you are to be turned out. Of course he means it for me. He does not wish to give me the power of saying that he sent me away from the house,—me, whom he has so long endeavored to rob,—me, to whom he owes so much for taking no steps to punish his fraud. And he knows that I can take none, because he is on his death-bed."
"But you couldn't, could you, if he were—were anywhere else?"
"Couldn't I? That's all you know about it. Understand, however, that I shall start to-morrow morning, and unless you like to remain here on a visit to him, you had better go with me." Mr. Jones signified his compliance with the hint, and so Miss Scarborough had done her work.
Mr. Scarborough, when thus left alone, spent his time chiefly in thinking of the condition of his sons. His eldest son, Mountjoy, who had ever been his favorite, whom as a little boy he had spoiled by every means in his power, was a ruined man. His debts had all been paid, except the money due to the money-lenders. But he was not the less a ruined man. Where he was at this moment his father did not know. All the world knew the injustice of which he had been guilty on his boy's behalf, and all the world knew the failure of the endeavor. And now he had made a great and a successful effort to give back to his legitimate heir all the property. But in return the second son only desired his death, and almost told him so to his face. He had been proud of Augustus as a lad, but he had never loved him as he had loved Mountjoy. Now he knew that he and Augustus must henceforward be enemies. Never for a moment did he think of giving up his power over the estate as long as the estate should still be his. Though it should be but for a month, though it should be but for a week, he would hold his own. Such was the nature of the man, and when he swallowed Mr. Merton's tonics he did so more with the idea of keeping the property out of his son's hands than of preserving his own life. According to his view, he had done very much for Augustus, and this was the return which he received!
And in truth he had done much for Augustus. For years past it had been his object to leave to his second son as much as would come to his first. He had continued to put money by for him, instead of spending his income on himself.
Of this Mr. Grey had known much, but had said nothing when he was speaking those severe words which Mr. Scarborough had always contrived to receive with laughter. But he had felt their injustice, though he had himself ridiculed the idea of law. There had been the two sons, both born from the same mother, and he had willed that they should be both rich men, living among the foremost of their fellowmen, and the circumstances of the property would have helped him. The income from year to year went on increasing.
The water-mills of Tretton and the town of Tretton had grown and been expanded within his domain, and the management of the sales in Mr. Grey's hands had been judicious. The revenues were double now what they had been when Mr. Scarborough first inherited it. It was all, no doubt, entailed, but for twenty years he had enjoyed the power of accumulating a sum of money for his second son's sake,—or would have enjoyed it, had not the accumulation been taken from him to pay Mountjoy's debts. It was in vain that he attempted to make Mountjoy responsible for the money. Mountjoy's debts, and irregularities, and gambling went on, till Mr. Scarborough found himself bound to dethrone the illegitimate son, and to place the legitimate in his proper position.
In doing the deed he had not suffered much, though the circumstances which had led to the doing of it had been full of pain. There had been an actual pleasure to him in thus showing himself to be superior to the conventionalities of the world. There was Augustus still ready to occupy the position to which he had in truth been born. And at the moment Mountjoy had gone—he knew not where. There had been gambling debts which, coming as they did after many others, he had refused to pay. He himself was dying at the moment, as he thought. It would be better for him to take up with Augustus. Mountjoy he must leave to his fate. For such a son, so reckless, so incurable, so hopeless, it was impossible that anything farther should be done. He would at least enjoy the power of leaving those wretched creditors without their money. There would be some triumph, some consolation, in that. So he had done, and now his heir turned against him!
It was very bitter to him, as he lay thinking of it all. He was a man who was from his constitution and heart capable of making great sacrifices for those he loved. He had a most thorough contempt for the character of an honest man. He did not believe in honesty, but only in mock honesty. And yet he would speak of an honest man with admiration, meaning something altogether different from the honesty of which men ordinarily spoke. The usual honesty of the world was with him all pretence, or, if not, assumed for the sake of the character it would achieve. Mr. Grey he knew to be honest; Mr. Grey's word he knew to be true; but he fancied that Mr. Grey had adopted this absurd mode of living with the view of cheating his neighbors by appearing to be better than others. All virtue and all vice were comprised by him in the words "good-nature" and "ill-nature." All church-going propensities,—and these propensities in his estimate extended very widely,—he scorned from the very bottom of his heart. That one set of words should be deemed more wicked than another, as in regard to swearing, was to him a sign either of hypocrisy, of idolatry, or of feminine weakness of intellect. To women he allowed the privilege of being, in regard to thought, only something better than dogs. When his sister Martha shuddered at some exclamation from his mouth, he would say to himself simply that she was a woman, not an idiot or a hypocrite. Of women, old and young, he had been very fond, and in his manner to them very tender; but when a woman rose to a way of thinking akin to his own, she was no longer a woman to his senses. Against such a one his taste revolted. She sunk to the level of a man contaminated by petticoats. And law was hardly less absurd to him than religion. It consisted of a perplexed entanglement of rules got together so that the few might live in comfort at the expense of the many.
Robbery, if you could get to the bottom of it, was bad, as was all violence; but taxation was robbery, rent was robbery, prices fixed according to the desire of the seller and not in obedience to justice, were robbery. "Then you are the greatest of robbers," his friends would say to him. He would admit it, allowing that in such a state of society he was not prepared to go out and live naked in the streets if he could help it. But he delighted to get the better of the law, and triumphed in his own iniquity, as has been seen by his conduct in reference to his sons.
In this way he lived, and was kind to many people, having a generous and an open hand. But he was a man who could hate with a bitter hatred, and he hated most those suspected by him of mean or dirty conduct. Mr. Grey, who constantly told him to his face that he was a rascal, he did not hate at all. Thinking Mr. Grey to be in some respects idiotic, he respected him, and almost loved him. He thoroughly believed Mr. Grey, thinking him to be an ass for telling so much truth unnecessarily. And he had loved his son Mountjoy in spite of all his iniquities, and had fostered him till it was impossible to foster him any longer. Then he had endeavored to love Augustus, and did not in the least love him the less because his son told him frequently of the wicked things he had done. He did not object to be told of his wickedness even by his son. But Augustus suspected him of other things than those of which he accused him, and attempted to be sharp with him and to get the better of him at his own game. And his son laughed at him and scorned him, and regarded him as one who was troublesome only for a time, and who need not be treated with much attention, because he was there only for a time. Therefore he hated Augustus. But Augustus was his heir, and he knew that he must die soon.
But for how long could he live? And what could he yet do before he died? A braver man than Mr. Scarborough never lived,—that is, one who less feared to die. Whether that is true courage may be a question, but it was his, in conjunction with courage of another description. He did not fear to die, nor did he fear to live. But what he did fear was to fail before he died. Not to go out with the conviction that he was vanishing amid the glory of success, was to him to be wretched at his last moment, and to be wretched at his last moment, or to anticipate that he should be so, was to him,—even so near his last hours,—the acme of misery. How much of life was left to him, so that he might recover something of success? Or was any moment left to him?
He could not sleep, so he rung his bell, and again sent for Mr. Merton. "I have taken what you told me."
"So best," said Mr. Merton. For he did not always feel assured that this strange patient would take what had been ordered.
"And I have tried to sleep."
"That will come after a while. You would not naturally sleep just after the tonic."
"And I have been thinking of what you said about business. There is one thing I must do, and then I can remain quiet for a fortnight, unless I should be called upon to disturb my rest by dying."
"We will hope not."
"That may go as it pleases," said the sick man. "I want you now to write a letter for me to Mr. Grey." Mr. Merton had undertaken to perform the duties of secretary as well as doctor, and had thought in this way to obtain some authority over his patient for the patient's own good; but he had found already that no authority had come to him. He now sat down at the table close to the bedside, and prepared to write in accordance with Mr. Scarborough's dictation. "I think that Grey,—the lawyer, you know,—is a good man."
"The world, as far as I hear it, says that he is honest."
"I don't care a straw what the world says. The world says that I am dishonest, but I am not." Merton could only shrug his shoulders. "I don't say that because I want you to change your opinion. I don't care what you think. But I tell you a fact. I doubt whether Grey is so absolutely honest as I am, but, as things go, he is a good man."
"Certainly."
"But the world, I suppose, says that my son Augustus is honest?"
"Well, yes; I should suppose so."
"If you have looked into him and have seen the contrary, I respect your intelligence."
"I did not mean anything particular."
"I dare say not, and if so, I mean nothing particular as to your intelligence. He, at any rate, is a scoundrel. Mountjoy—you know Mountjoy?"
"Never saw him in my life."
"I don't think he is a scoundrel,—not all round. He has gambled when he has not had money to pay. That is bad. And he has promised when he wanted money, and broken his word as soon as he had got it, which is bad also. And he has thought himself to be a fine fellow because he has been intimate with lords and dukes, which is very bad. He has never cared whether he paid his tailor. I do not mean that he has merely got into debt, which a young man such as he cannot help; but he has not cared whether his breeches were his or another man's. That too is bad. Though he has been passionately fond of women, it has only been for himself, not for the women, which is very bad. There is an immense deal to be altered before he can go to heaven."
"I hope the change may come before it is too late," said Merton.
"These changes don't come very suddenly, you know. But there is some chance for Mountjoy. I don't think that there is any for Augustus." Here he paused, but Merton did not feel disposed to make any remark. "You don't happen to know a young man of the name of Annesley,—Harry Annesley?"
"I have heard his name from your son."
"From Augustus? Then you didn't hear any good of him, I'm sure. You have heard all the row about poor Mountjoy's disappearance?"
"I heard that he did disappear."
"After a quarrel with that Annesley?"
"After some quarrel. I did not notice the name at the time."
"Harry Annesley was the name. Now, Augustus says that Harry Annesley was the last person who saw Mountjoy before his disappearance,—the last who knew him. He implies thereby that Annesley was the conscious or unconscious cause of his disappearance."
"Well, yes."
"Certainly it is so. And as it has been thought by the police, and by other fools, that Mountjoy was murdered,—that his disappearance was occasioned by his death, either by murder or suicide, it follows that Annesley must have had something to do with it. That is the inference, is it not?"
"I should suppose so," said Merton.
"That is manifestly the inference which Augustus draws. To hear him speak to me about it you would suppose that he suspected Annesley of having killed Mountjoy."
"Not that, I hope."
"Something of the sort. He has intended it to be believed that Annesley, for his own purposes, has caused Mountjoy to be made away with. He has endeavored to fill the police with that idea. A policeman, generally, is the biggest fool that London, or England, or the world produces, and has been selected on that account. Therefore the police have a beautifully mysterious but altogether ignorant suspicion as to Annesley. That is the doing of Augustus, for some purpose of his own. Now, let me tell you that Augustus saw Mountjoy after Annesley had seen him, that he knows this to be the case, and that it was Augustus, who contrived Mountjoy's disappearance. Now what do you think of Augustus?" This was a question which Merton did not find it very easy to answer. But Mr. Scarborough waited for a reply. "Eh?" he exclaimed.
"I had rather not give an opinion on a point so raised."
"You may. Of course you understand that I intend to assert that Augustus is the greatest blackguard you ever knew. If you have anything to say in his favor you can say it."
"Only that you may be mistaken. Living down here, you may not know the truth."
"Just that. But I do know the truth. Augustus is very clever; but there are others as clever as he is. He can pay, but then so can I. That he should want to get Mountjoy out of the way is intelligible. Mountjoy has become disreputable, and had better be out of the way. But why persistently endeavor to throw the blame upon young Annesley? That surprises me;—only I do not care much about it. I hear now for the first time that he has ruined young Annesley, and that does appear to be very horrible. But why does he want to pay eighty thousand pounds to these creditors? That I should wish to do so,—out of a property which must in a very short time become his,—would be intelligible. I may be supposed to have some affection for Mountjoy, and, after all, am not called upon to pay the money out of my own pocket. Do you understand it?"
"Not in the least," said Merton, who did not, indeed, very much care about it.
"Nor do I;—only this, that if he could pay these men and deprive them of all power of obtaining farther payment, let who would have the property, they at any rate would be quiet. Augustus is now my eldest son. Perhaps he thinks he might not remain so. If I were out of the way, and these creditors were paid, he thinks that poor Mountjoy wouldn't have a chance. He shall pay this eighty thousand pounds. Mountjoy hasn't a chance as it is; but Augustus shall pay the penalty."
Then he threw himself back on the bed, and Mr. Merton begged him to spare himself the trouble of the letter for the present. But in a few minutes he was again on his elbow and took some farther medicine. "I'm a great ass," he said, "to help Augustus in playing his game. If I were to go off at once he would be the happiest fellow left alive. But come, let us begin." Then he dictated the letter as follows:
"DEAR MR. GREY,—I have been thinking much of what passed between us the other day. Augustus seems to be in a great hurry as to paying the creditors, and I do not see why he should not be gratified, as the money may now be forthcoming. I presume that the sales, which will be completed before Christmas, will nearly enable us to stop their mouths. I can understand that Mountjoy should be induced to join with me and Augustus, so that in disposing of so large a sum of money the authority of all may be given, both of myself and of the heir, and also of him who a short time since was supposed to be the heir. I think that you may possibly find Mountjoy's address by applying to Augustus, who is always clever in such matters.
"But you will have to be certain that you obtain all the bonds. If you can get Tyrrwhit to help you you will be able to be sure of doing so. The matter to him is one of vital importance, as his sum is so much the largest. Of course he will open his mouth very wide; but when he finds that he can get his principal and nothing more, I think that he will help you. I am afraid that I must ask you to put yourself in correspondence with Augustus. That he is an insolent scoundrel I will admit; but we cannot very well complete this affair without him. I fancy that he now feels it to be his interest to get it all done before I die, as the men will be clamorous with their bonds as soon as the breath is out of my body.—
"Yours sincerely, JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
"That will do," he said, when the letter was finished. But when Mr. Merton turned to leave the room Mr. Scarborough detained him. "Upon the whole, I am not dissatisfied with my life," he said.
"I don't know that you have occasion," rejoined Mr. Merton. In this he absolutely lied, for, according to his thinking, there was very much in the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's life which ought to have induced regret. He knew the whole story of the birth of the elder son, of the subsequent marriage, of Mr. Scarborough's fraudulent deceit which had lasted so many years, and of his later return to the truth, so as to save the property, and to give back to the younger son all of which for so many years he, his father, had attempted to rob him.
All London had talked of the affair, and all London had declared that so wicked and dishonest an old gentleman had never lived. And now he had returned to the truth simply with the view of cheating the creditors and keeping the estate in the family. He was manifestly an old gentleman who ought to be, above all others, dissatisfied with his own life; but Mr. Merton, when the assertion was made to him, knew not what other answer to make.
"I really do not think I have, nor do I know one to whom heaven with all its bliss will be more readily accorded. What have I done for myself?"
"I don't quite know what you have done all your life."
"I was born a rich man, and then I married,—not rich as I am now, but with ample means for marrying."
"After Mr. Mountjoy's birth," said Merton, who could not pretend to be ignorant of the circumstance.
"Well, yes. I have my own ideas about marriage and that kind of thing, which are, perhaps, at variance with yours." Whereupon Merton bowed. "I had the best wife in the world, who entirely coincided with me in all that I did. I lived entirely abroad, and made most liberal allowances to all the agricultural tenants. I rebuilt all the cottages;—go and look at them. I let any man shoot his own game till Mountjoy came up in the world and took the shooting into his own hands. When the people at the pottery began to build I assisted them in every way in the world. I offered to keep a school at my own expense, solely on the understanding that what they call Dissenters should be allowed to come there. The parson spread abroad a rumor that I was an atheist, and consequently the School was kept for the Dissenters only. The School-board has come and made that all right, though the parson goes on with his rumor. If he understood me as well as I understand him, he would know that he is more of an atheist than I am. I gave my boys the best education, spending on them more than double what is done by men with twice my means. My tastes were all simple, and were not specially vicious. I do not know that I have ever made any one unhappy. Then the estate became richer, but Mountjoy grew more and more expensive. I began to find that with all my economies the estate could not keep pace with him, so as to allow me to put by anything for Augustus. Then I had to bethink myself what I had to do to save the estate from those rascals."
"You took peculiar steps."
"I am a man who does take peculiar steps. Another would have turned his face to the wall in my state of health, and have allowed two dirty Jews such as Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart to have revelled in the wealth of Tretton. I am not going to allow them to revel. Tyrrwhit knows me, and Hart will have to know me. They could not keep their hands to themselves till the breath was out of my body. Now I am about to see that each shall have his own shortly, and the estate will still be kept in the family."
"For Mr. Augustus Scarborough?"
"Yes, alas, yes! But that is not my doing. I do not know that I have cause to be dissatisfied with myself, but I cannot but own that I am unhappy. But I wished you to understand that though a man may break the law, he need not therefore be accounted bad, and though he may have views of his own as to religious matters, he need not be an atheist. I have made efforts on behalf of others, in which I have allowed no outward circumstances to control me. Now I think I do feel sleepy."
"Just now I am triumphant," Harry Annesley had said to his hostess as he left Mrs. Armitage's house in the Paragon, at Cheltenham. He was absolutely triumphant, throwing his hat up into the air in the abandonment of his joy. For he was not a man to have conceived so well of his own parts as to have flattered himself that the girl must certainly be his.
There are at present a number of young men about who think that few girls are worth the winning, but that any girl is to be had, not by asking,—which would be troublesome,—but simply by looking at her. You can see the feeling in their faces. They are for the most part small in stature, well made little men, who are aware that they have something to be proud of, wearing close-packed, shining little hats, by which they seem to add more than a cubit to their stature; men endowed with certain gifts of personal—dignity I may perhaps call it, though the word rises somewhat too high. They look as though they would be able to say a clever thing; but their spoken thoughts seldom rise above a small, acrid sharpness. They respect no one; above all, not their elders. To such a one his horse comes first, if he have a horse; then a dog; and then a stick; and after that the mistress of his affections. But their fault is not altogether of their own making. It is the girls themselves who spoil them and endure their inanity, because of that assumed look of superiority which to the eyes of the outside world would be a little offensive were it not a little foolish. But they do not marry often. Whether it be that the girls know better at last, or that they themselves do not see sufficiently clearly their future dinners, who can say? They are for the most part younger brothers, and perhaps have discovered the best way of getting out of the world whatever scraps the world can afford them. Harry Annesley's faults were altogether of another kind. In regard to this young woman, the Florence whom he had loved, he had been over-modest. Now his feeling of glory was altogether redundant. Having been told by Florence that she was devoted to him, he walked with his head among the heavens. The first instinct with such a young man as those of whom I have spoken teaches him, the moment he has committed himself, to begin to consider how he can get out of the scrape. It is not much of a scrape, for when an older man comes this way, a man verging toward baldness, with a good professional income, our little friend is forgotten and he is passed by without a word. But Harry had now a conviction,—on that one special night,—that he never would be forgotten and never would forget. He was filled at once with an unwonted pride. All the world was now at his feet, and all the stars were open to him. He had begun to have a glimmering of what it was that Augustus Scarborough intended to do; but the intentions of Augustus Scarborough were now of no moment to him. He was clothed in a panoply of armor which would be true against all weapons. At any rate, on that night and during the next day this feeling remained the same with him.
Then he received a summons from his mother at Buston. His mother pressed him to come at once down to the parsonage. "Your uncle has been with your father, and has said terrible things about you. As you know, my brother is not very strong-minded, and I should not care so much for what he says were it not that so much is in his hands. I cannot understand what it is all about, but your father says that he does nothing but threaten. He talks of putting the entail on one side. Entails used to be fixed things, I thought; but since what old Mr. Scarborough did nobody seems to regard them now. But even suppose the entail does remain, what are you to do about the income? Your father thinks you had better come down and have a little talk about the matter."
This was the first blow received since the moment of his exaltation. Harry knew very well that the entail was fixed, and could not be put aside by Mr. Prosper, though Mr. Scarborough might have succeeded with his entail; but yet he was aware that his present income was chiefly dependent on his uncle's good-will. To be reduced to live on his fellowship would be very dreadful. And that income, such as it was, depended entirely on his celibacy. And he had, too, as he was well aware, engendered habits of idleness during the last two years. The mind of a young man so circumstanced turns always first to the Bar, and then to literature. At the Bar he did not think that there could be any opening for him. In the first place, it was late to begin; and then he was humble enough to believe of himself that he had none of the peculiar gifts necessary for a judge or for an advocate. Perhaps the knowledge that six or seven years of preliminary labor would be necessary was somewhat of a deterrent.
The rewards of literature might be achieved immediately. Such was his idea. But he had another idea,—perhaps as erroneous,—that this career would not become a gentleman who intended to be Squire of Buston. He had seen two or three men, decidedly Bohemian in their modes of life, to whom he did not wish to assimilate himself. There was Quaverdale, whom he had known intimately at St. John's, and who was on the Press. Quaverdale had quarrelled absolutely with his father, who was also a clergyman, and having been thrown altogether on his own resources, had come out as a writer forThe Coming Hour. He made his five or six hundred a year in a rattling, loose, uncertain sort of fashion, and was,—so thought Harry Annesley,—the dirtiest man of his acquaintance. He did not believe in the six hundred a year, or Quaverdale would certainly have changed his shirt more frequently, and would sometimes have had a new pair of trousers. He was very amusing, very happy, very thoughtless, and as a rule altogether impecunious. Annesley had never known him without the means of getting a good dinner, but those means did not rise to the purchase of a new hat. Putting Quaverdale before him as an example, Annesley could not bring himself to choose literature as a profession. Thinking of all this when he received his mother's letter, he assured himself that Florence would not like professional literature.
He wrote to say that he would be down at Buston in five days' time. It does not become a son who is a fellow of a college and the heir to a property to obey his parents too quickly. But he gave up the intermediate days to thinking over the condition which bound him to his uncle, and to discussing his prospects with Quaverdale, who, as usual, was remaining in town doing the editor's work forThe Coming Hour. "If he interfered with me I should tell him to go to bed," said Quaverdale. The allusion was, of course, made to Mr. Prosper.
"I am not on those sort of terms with him."
"I should make my own terms, and then let him do his worst. What can he do? If he means to withdraw his beggarly two hundred and fifty pounds, of course he'll do it."
"I suppose I do owe him something, in the way of respect."
"Not if he threatens you in regard to money. What does it come to? That you are to cringe at his heels for a beggarly allowance which he has been pleased to bestow upon you without your asking. 'Very well, my dear fellow,' I should say to him, 'you can stop it the moment you please. For certain objects of your own,—that your heir might live in the world after a certain fashion,—you have bestowed it. It has been mine since I was a child. If you can reconcile it to your conscience to discontinue it, do so.' You would find that he would have to think twice about it."
"He will stop it, and what am I to do then? Can I get an opening on any of these papers?" Quaverdale whistled,—a mode of receiving the overture which was not pleasing to Annesley. "I don't suppose that anything so very super-human in the way of intellect is required." Annesley had got a fellowship, whereas Quaverdale had done nothing at the university.
"Couldn't you make a pair of shoes? Shoemakers do get good wages."
"What do you mean? A fellow never can get you to be serious for two minutes together.
"I never was more serious in my life."
"That I am to make shoes?"
"No, I don't quite think that. I don't suppose you can make them. You'd have first to learn the trade and show that you were an adept."
"And I must show that I am an adept before I can write forThe Coming Hour." There was a tone of sarcasm in this which was not lost on Quaverdale.
"Certainly you must; and that you are a better adept than I who have got the place, or some other unfortunate who will have to be put out of his berth.The Coming Houronly requires a certain number. Of course there are many newspapers in London, and many magazines, and much literary work going. You may get your share of it, but you have got to begin by shoving some incompetent fellow out. And in order to be able to begin you must learn the trade."
"How did you begin?"
"Just in that way. While you were roaming about London like a fine gentleman I began by earning twenty-four shillings a week."
"Can I earn twenty-four shillings a week?"
"You won't because you have already got your fellowship. You had a knack at writing Greek iambics, and therefore got a fellowship. I picked up at the same time the way of stringing English together. I also soon learned the way to be hungry. I'm not hungry now very often, but I've been through it. My belief is that you wouldn't get along with my editor."
"That's your idea of being independent."
"Certainly it is. I do his work, and take his pay, and obey his orders. If you think you can do the same, come and try. There's not room here, but there is, no doubt, room elsewhere. There's the trade to be learned, like any other trade; but my belief is that even then you could not do it. We don't want Greek iambics."
Harry turned away disgusted. Quaverdale was like the rest of the world, and thought that a peculiar talent and a peculiar tact were needed for his own business. Harry believed that he was as able to write a leading article, at any rate, as Quaverdale, and that the Greek iambics would not stand in his way. But he conceived it to be probable that his habits of cleanliness might do so, and gave up the idea for the present. He thought that his friend should have welcomed him with an open hand into the realms of literature; and, perhaps, it was the case that Quaverdale attributed too much weight to the knack of turning readable paragraphs on any subject at any moment's notice.
But what should he do down at Buston? There were three persons there with whom he would have to contend,—his father, his mother, and his uncle. With his father he had always been on good terms, but had still been subject to a certain amount of gentle sarcasm. He had got his fellowship and his allowance, and so had been lifted above his father's authority. His father thoroughly despised his brother-in-law, and looked down upon him as an absolute ass. But he was reticent, only dropping a word here and there, out of deference, perhaps, to his wife, and from a feeling lest his son might be deficient in wise courtesy, if he were encouraged to laugh at his benefactor. He had said a word or two as to a profession when Harry left Cambridge, but the word or two had come to nothing. In those days the uncle had altogether ridiculed the idea, and the mother, fond of her son, the fellow and the heir, had altogether opposed the notion. The rector himself was an idle, good-looking, self-indulgent man,—a man who read a little and understood what he read, and thought a little and understood what he thought, but who took no trouble about anything. To go through the world comfortably with a rather large family and a rather small income was the extent of his ambition. In regard to his eldest son he had begun well. Harry had been educated free, and had got a fellowship. He had never cost his father a shilling. And now the eldest of two grown-up daughters was engaged to be married to the son of a brewer living in the little town of Buntingford. This also was a piece of good-luck which the rector accepted with a thankful heart. There was another grown-up girl, also pretty, and then a third girl not grown up and the two boys who were at present at school at Royston. Thus burdened, the Rev. Mr. Annesley went through the world with as jaunty a step as was possible, making but little of his troubles, but anxious to make as much as he could of his advantages. Of these, the position of Harry was the brightest, if only Harry would be careful to guard it. It was quite out of the question that he should find an income for Harry if the squire stopped the two hundred and fifty pounds per annum which he at present allowed him.
Then there was Harry's mother, who had already very frequently discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry's lot. She was a dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be swans. And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the young Buntingford brewer, was the next. That Harry's allowance should be stopped would be almost as great a misfortune as though Mr. Thoroughbung were to break his neck out hunting with the Puckeridge hounds,—an amusement which, after the manner of brewers, he was much in the habit of following. Mrs. Annesley had lived at Buston all her life, having been born at the Hall. She was an excellent mother of a family, and a good clergyman's wife, being in both respects more painstaking and assiduous than her husband. But she did maintain something of respect for her brother, though in her inmost heart she knew that he was a fool. But to have been born Squire of Buston was something, and to have reached the age of fifty unmarried, so as to leave the position of heir open to her own son, was more. To such a one a great deal was due; but of that deal Harry was but little disposed to pay any part. He must be talked to, and very seriously talked to, and if possible saved from the sin of offending his easily-offended uncle. A terrible idea had been suggested to her lately by her husband. The entail might be made altogether inoperative by the marriage of her brother. It was a fearful notion, but one which if it entered into her brother's head might possibly be carried out. No one before had ever dreamed of anything so dangerous to the Annesley interests, and Mrs. Annesley now felt that by due submission on the part of the heir it might be avoided.
But the squire himself was the foe whom Harry most feared. He quite understood that he would be required to be submissive, and, even if he were willing, he did not know how to act the part. There was much now that he would endure for the sake of Florence. If Mr. Prosper demanded that after dinner he should hear a sermon, he would sit and hear it out. It would be a bore, but might be endured on behalf of the girl whom he loved. But he much feared that the cause of his uncle's displeasure was deeper than that. A rumor had reached him that his uncle had declared his conduct to Mountjoy Scarborough to have been abominable. He had heard no words spoken by his uncle, but threats had reached him through his mother, and also through his uncle's man of business. He certainly would go down to Buston, and carry himself toward his uncle with what outward signs of respect would be possible. But if his uncle accused him, he could not but tell his uncle that he knew nothing of the matter of which he was talking. Not for all Buston could he admit that he had done anything mean or ignoble. Florence, he was quite sure, would not desire it. Florence would not be Florence were she to desire it. He thought that he could trace the hands,—or rather the tongues,—through which the calumny had made its way down to the Hall. He would at once go to the Hall, and tell his uncle all the facts. He would describe the gross ill-usage to which he had been subjected. No doubt he had left the man sprawling upon the pavement, but there had been no sign that the man had been dangerously hurt; and when two days afterward the man had vanished, it was clear that he could not have vanished without legs. Had he taken himself off,—as was probable,—then why need Harry trouble himself as to his vanishing? If some one else had helped him in escaping,—as was also probable,—why had not that some one come and told the circumstances when all the inquiries were being made? Why should he have been expected to speak of the circumstances of such an encounter, which could not have been told but to Captain Scarborough's infinite disgrace? And he could not have told of it without naming Florence Mountjoy.
His uncle, when he heard the truth, must acknowledge that he had not behaved badly. And yet Harry, as he turned it all in his mind was uneasy as to his own conduct. He could not quite acquit himself in that he had kept secret all the facts of that midnight encounter in the face of the inquiries which had been made, in that he had falsely assured Augustus Scarborough of his ignorance. And yet he knew that on no consideration would he acknowledge himself to have been wrong.
It was still October when Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and the Mountjoys had just reached Brussels. Mr. Grey had made his visit to Tretton and had returned to London. Harry went home on an understanding,—on the part of his mother, at any rate,—that he should remain there till Christmas. But he felt himself very averse to so long a sojourn. If the Hall and park were open to him he might endure it. He would take down two or three stiff books which he certainly would never read, and would shoot a few pheasants, and possibly ride one of his future brother-in-law's horses with the hounds. But he feared that there was to be a quarrel by which he would be debarred from the Hall and the park; and he knew, too, that it would not be well for him to shoot and hunt when his income should have been cut off. It would be necessary that some great step should be taken at once; but then it would be necessary, also, that Florence should agree to that step. He had a modest lodging in London, but before he started he prepared himself for what must occur by giving notice. "I don't say as yet that I shall give them up; but I might as well let you know that it's possible." This he said to Mrs. Brown, who kept the lodgings, and who received this intimation as a Mrs. Brown is sure to do. But where should he betake himself when his home at Mrs. Brown's had been lost? He would, he thought, find it quite impossible to live in absolute idleness at the rectory. Then in an unhappy frame of mind he went down by the train to Stevenage, and was there met by the rectory pony-carriage.
He saw it all in his mother's eye the moment she embraced him. There was some terrible trouble in the wind, and what could it be but his uncle? "Well, mother, what is it?"
"Oh, Harry, there is such a sad affair up at the Hall!"
"Is my uncle dead?"
"Dead! No!"
"Then why do you look so sad?—
"'Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night.'"
"Oh Harry do not laugh. Your uncle says such dreadful things!"
"I don't care much what he says. The question is—what does he mean to do?"
"He declares that he will cut you off altogether."
"That is sooner said than done."
"That is all very well, Harry; but he can do it. Oh, Harry! But come and sit down and talk to me. I told your father to be out, so that I might have you alone; and the dear girls are gone into Buntingford."
"Ah, like them! Thoroughbung will have enough of them."
"He is our only happiness now."
"Poor Thoroughbung! I pity him if he has to do happiness for the whole household."
"Joshua is a most excellent young man. Where we should be without him I do not know." The flourishing young brewer was named Joshua, and had been known to Harry for some years, though never as yet known as a brother-in-law.
"I am sure he is; particularly as he has chosen Molly to be his wife. He is just the young man who ought to have a wife."
"Of course he ought."
"Because he can keep a family. But now about my uncle. He is to perform this ceremony of cutting me off. Will he turn out to have had a wife and family in former ages? I have no doubt old Scarborough could manage it, but I don't give my uncle credit for so much cleverness."
"But in future ages—" said the unhappy mother, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes.
"You mean that he is going to have a family?"
"It is all in the hands of Providence," said the parson's wife.
"Yes; that is true. He is not too old yet to be a second Priam, and have his curtains drawn the other way. That's his little game, is it?"
"There's a sort of rumor about, that it is possible."
"And who is the lady?"
"You may be sure there will be no lack of a lady if he sets his mind upon it. I was turning it over in my mind, and I thought of Matilda Thoroughbung."
"Joshua's aunt!"
"Well; she is Joshua's aunt, no doubt. I did just whisper the idea to Joshua, and he says that she is fool enough for anything. She has twenty-five thousand pounds of her own, but she lives all by herself."
"I know where she lives,—just out of Buntingford, as you go to Royston. But she's not alone. Is Uncle Prosper to marry Miss Tickle also?" Miss Tickle was an estimable lady living as companion to Miss Thoroughbung.
"I don't know how they may manage; but it has to be thought of, Harry. We only know that your uncle has been twice to Buntingford."
"The lady is fifty, at any rate."
"The lady is barely forty. She gives out that she is thirty-six. And he could settle a jointure on her which would leave the property not worth having."
"What can I do?"
"Yes, indeed, my dear; what can you do?"
"Why is he going to upset all the arrangements of my life, and his life, after such a fashion as this?"
"That's just what your father says."
"I suppose he can do it. The law will allow him. But the injustice would be monstrous. I did not ask him to take me by the hand when I was a boy and lead me into this special walk of life. It has been his own doing. How will he look me in the face and tell me that he is going to marry a wife? I shall look him in the face and tell him of my wife."
"But is that settled?"
"Yes, mother; it is settled. Wish me joy for having won the finest lady that ever walked the earth." His mother blessed him,—but said nothing about the finest lady,—who at that moment she believed to be the future bride of Mr. Joshua Thoroughbung. "And when I shall tell my uncle that it is so, what will he say to me? Will he have the face then to tell me that I am to be cut out of Buston? I doubt whether he will have the courage."
"He has thought of that, Harry."
"How thought of it, mother?"
"He has given orders that he is not to see you."
"Not to see me!"
"So he declares. He has written a long letter to your father, in which he says that he would be spared the agony of an interview."
"What! is it all done, then?"
"Your father got the letter yesterday. It must have taken my poor brother a week to write it."
"And he tells the whole plan,—Matilda Thoroughbung, and the future family?"
"No, he does not say anything about Miss Thoroughbung He says that he must make other arrangements about the property."
"He can't make other arrangements; that is, not until the boy is born. It may be a long time first, you know."
"But the jointure?"
"What does Molly say about it?"
"Molly is mad about it and so is Joshua. Joshua talks about it just as though he were one of us, and he says that the old people at Buntingford would not hear of it." The old people spoken of were the father and mother of Joshua, and the half-brother of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung. "But what can they do?"
"They can do nothing. If Miss Matilda likes Uncle Prosper—"
"Likes, my dear! How young you are! Of course she would like a country house to live in, and the park, and the county society. And she would like somebody to live with besides Miss Tickle."
"My uncle, for instance."
"Yes, your uncle."
"If I had my choice, mother, I should prefer Miss Tickle."
"Because you are a silly boy. But what are you to do now?"
"In this long letter which he has written to my father does he give no reason?"
"Your father will show you the letter. Of course he gives reasons. He says that you have done something which you ought not to have done—about that wretched Mountjoy Scarborough."
"What does he know about it?—the idiot!"
"Oh, Harry!"
"Well, mother, what better can I say of him? He has taken me as a child and fashioned my life for me; has said that this property should be mine, and has put an income into my hand as though I were an eldest son; has repeatedly declared, when his voice was more potent than mine, that I should follow no profession. He has bound himself to me, telling all the world that I was his heir. And now he casts me out because he has heard some cock-and-bull story, of the truth of which he knows nothing. What better can I say of him than call him an idiot? He must be that or else a heartless knave. And he says that he does not mean to see me,—me with whose life he has thus been empowered to interfere, so as to blast it if not to bless it, and intends to turn me adrift as he might do a dog that did not suit him! And because he knows that he cannot answer me he declares that he will not see me."
"It is very hard, Harry."
"Therefore I call him an idiot in preference to calling him a knave. But I am not going to be dropped out of the running in that way, just in deference to his will. I shall see him. Unless they lock him up in his bedroom I shall compel him to see me."
"What good would that do, Harry? That would only set him more against you."
"You don't know his weakness."
"Oh yes, I do; he is very weak."
"He will not see me, because he will have to yield when he hears what I have to say for myself. He knows that, and would therefore fain keep away from me. Why should he be stirred to this animosity against me?"
"Why indeed?"
"Because there is some one who wishes to injure me more strong than he is, and who has got hold of him. Some one has lied behind my back."
"Who has done this?"
"Ah, that is the question. But I know who has done it, though I will not name him just now. This enemy of mine, knowing him to be weak,—knowing him to be an idiot, has got hold of him and persuaded him. He believes the story which is told to him, and then feels happy in shaking off an incubus. No doubt I have not been very soft with him,—nor, indeed, hard. I have kept out of his way, and he is willing to resent it; but he is afraid to face me and tell me that it is so. Here are the girls come back from Buntingford. Molly, you blooming young bride, I wish you joy of your brewer."
"He's none the worse on that account, Master Harry," said the eldest sister.
"All the better,—very much the better. Where would you be if he was not a brewer? But I congratulate you with all my heart, old girl. I have known him ever so long, and he is one of the best fellows I do know."
"Thank you, Harry," and she kissed him.
"I wish Fanny and Kate may even do so well."
"All in good time," said Fanny.
"I mean to have a banker—all to myself," said Kate.
"I wish you may have half as good a man for your husband," said Harry.
"And I am to tell you," continued Molly, who was now in high good-humor, "that there will be always one of his horses for you to ride as long as you remain at home. It is not every brother-in-law that would do as much as that for you."
"Nor yet every uncle," said Kate, shaking her head, from which Harry could see that this quarrel with his uncle had been freely discussed in the family circle.
"Uncles are very different," said the mother; "uncles can't be expected to do everything as though they were in love."
"Fancy Uncle Peter in love!" said Kate. Mr. Prosper was called Uncle Peter by the girls, though always in a sort of joke. Then the other two girls shook their heads very gravely, from which Harry learned that the question respecting the choice of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung as a mistress for the Hall had been discussed also before them.
"I am not going to marry all the family," said Molly.
"Not Miss Matilda, for instance," said her brother, laughing.
"No, especially not Matilda. Joshua is quite as angry about his aunt as anybody here can be. You'll find that he is more of an Annesley than a Thoroughbung."
"My dear," said the mother, "your husband will, as a matter of course, think most of his own family. And so ought you to do of his family, which will be yours. A married woman should always think most of her husband's family." In this way the mother told her daughter of her future duties; but behind the mother's back Kate made a grimace, for the benefit of her sister Fanny, showing thereby her conviction that in a matter of blood,—what she called being a gentleman,—a Thoroughbung could not approach an Annesley.
"Mamma does not know it as yet," Molly said afterward in privacy to her brother, "but you may take it for granted that Uncle Peter has been into Buntingford and has made an offer to Aunt Matilda. I could tell it at once, because she looked so sharp at me to-day. And Joshua says that he is sure it is so by the airs she gives herself."
"You think she'll have him?"
"Have him! Of course she'll have him. Why shouldn't she? A wretched old maid living with a companion like that would have any one."
"She has got a lot of money."
"She'll take care of her money, let her alone for that.
"And she'll have his house to live in. And there'll be a jointure. Of course, if there were to be children—"
"Oh, bother!"
"Well, perhaps there will not. But it will be just as bad. We don't mean even to visit them; we think it so very wicked. And we shall tell them a bit of our mind as soon as the thing has been publicly declared."