MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE
My grandfather had a gratification in my success, mingled with a
transparent jealousy of the chief agent in procuring it. He warned me
when I left him that he was not to be hoodwinked: he must see the money
standing in my name on the day appointed. His doubts were evident, but
he affected to be expectant. Not a word of Sarkeld could be spoken. My
success appeared to be on a more visionary foundation the higher I
climbed.
Now Jorian DeWitt had affirmed that the wealthy widow Lady Sampleman
was to be had by my father for the asking. Placed as we were, I
regarded the objections to his alliance with her in a mild light. She
might lend me the money to appease the squire; that done, I would
speedily repay it. I admitted, in a letter to my aunt Dorothy, the
existing objections: but the lady had long been enamoured of him, I
pleaded, and he was past the age for passionate affection, and would
infallibly be courteous and kind. She was rich. We might count on her
to watch over him carefully. Of course, with such a wife, he would sink
to a secondary social sphere; was it to be regretted if he did? The
letter was a plea for my own interests, barely veiled.
At the moment of writing it, and moreover when I treated my father with
especial coldness, my heart was far less warm in the contemplation of
its pre-eminent aim than when I was suffering him to endanger it,
almost without a protest. Janet and a peaceful Riversley, and a life of
quiet English distinction, beckoned to me visibly, and not hatefully.
The image of Ottilia conjured up pictures of a sea of shipwrecks, a
scene of immeasurable hopelessness. Still, I strove toward that. My
strivings were against my leanings, and imagining the latter, which
involved no sacrifice of the finer sense of honour, to be in the
direction of my lower nature, I repelled them to preserve a lofty aim
that led me through questionable ways.
'Can it be you, Harry,' my aunt Dorothy's reply ran (I had anticipated
her line of reasoning, though not her warmth), 'who advise him to this
marriage from a motive so inexplicably unworthy? That you will repay
her the money, I do not require your promise to assure me. The money is
nothing. It is the prospect of her life and fortune which you are
consenting, if not urging him, to imperil for your own purposes. Are
you really prepared to imitate in him, with less excuse for doing it,
the things you most condemn? Let it be checked at the outset. It cannot
be. A marriage of inclination on both sides, prudent in a worldly
sense, we might wish for him, perhaps, if he could feel quite sure of
himself. His wife might persuade him not to proceed in his law-case.
There I have long seen his ruin. He builds such expectations on it! You
speak of something worse than a mercenary marriage. I see this in your
handwriting!—your approval of it! I have to check the whisper that
tells me it reads like a conspiracy. Is she not a simpleton? Can you
withhold your pity? and pitying, can you possibly allow her to be
entrapped? Forgive my seeming harshness. I do not often speak to my
Harry so. I do now because I must appeal to you, as the one chiefly
responsible, on whose head the whole weight of a dreadful error will
fall. Oh! my dearest, be guided by the purity of your feelings to shun
doubtful means. I have hopes that after the first few weeks your
grandfather will—I know he does not expect to find the engagement
fulfilled—be the same to you that he was before he discovered the
extravagance. You are in Parliament, and I am certain, that by keeping
as much as possible to yourself, and living soberly, your career there
will persuade him to meet your wishes.'
The letter was of great length. In conclusion, she entreated me to
despatch an answer by one of the early morning trains; entreating me
once more to cause 'any actual deed' to be at least postponed. The
letter revealed what I had often conceived might be.
My rejoinder to my aunt Dorothy laid stress on my father's pledge of
his word of honour as a gentleman to satisfy the squire on a stated
day. I shrank from the idea of the Riversley crow over him. As to the
lady, I said we would see that her money was fastened to her securely
before she committed herself to the deeps. The money to be advanced to
me would lie at my bankers, in my name,—untouched: it would be repaid
in the bulk after a season. This I dwelt on particularly, both to
satisfy her and to appease my sense of the obligation. An airy
pleasantry in the tone of this epistle amused me while writing it and
vexed me when it had gone. But a letter sent, upon special request, by
railway, should not, I thought, be couched in the ordinary strain.
Besides one could not write seriously of a person like Lady Sampleman.
I consulted my aunt Dorothy's scruples by stopping my father on his way
to the lady. His carriage was at the door: I suggested money-lenders:
he had tried them all. He begged me to permit him to start: but it was
too ignominious to think of its being done under my very eyes, and I
refused. He had tried the money-lenders yesterday. They required a
mortgage solider than expectations for the sum we wanted. Dettermain
and Newson had declined to undertake the hypothecation of his annuity.
Providence pointed to Sampleman.
'You change in a couple of nights, Richie,' said he. 'Now I am always
the identical man. I shall give happiness to one sincerely good soul. I
have only to offer myself—let me say in becoming modesty, I believe so.
Let me go to her and have it over, for with me a step taken is a thing
sanctified. I have in fact held her in reserve. Not that I think
Fortune has abandoned us: but a sagacious schemer will not leave
everything to the worthy Dame. I should have driven to her yesterday,
if I had not heard from Dettermain and Newson that there was a hint of
a negotiation for a compromise. Government is fairly frightened.'
He mused. 'However, I slept on it, and arrived at the conclusion this
morning that my old Richie stood in imminent jeopardy of losing the
fruit of all my toil. The good woman will advance the money to her
husband. When I pledged my word to the squire I had reason to imagine
the two months a sufficient time. We have still a couple of days. I
have heard of men who lost heart at the eleventh hour, and if they had
only hung on, with gallant faith in themselves, they would have been
justified by the result. Faith works miracles. At least it allows time
for them.'
His fertile ingenuity spared mine the task of persuading him to
postpone the drive to Lady Sampleman. But that he would have been
prompt to go, at a word from me, and was actually about to go when I
entered his house, I could not question.
He drove in manifest relief of mind to Dettermain and Newson's.
I had an appointment with Mr. Temple at a great political Club, to meet
the gentlemen who were good enough to undertake the introduction of the
infant member to the House of Commons. My incessantly twisting
circumstances foiled the pleasure and pride due to me. From the Club I
bent my steps to Temple's district, and met in the street young Eckart
vom Hof, my champion and second on a memorable occasion, fresh upon
London, and looking very Germanic in this drab forest of our city
people. He could hardly speak of Deutschland for enthusiasm at the
sight of the moving masses. His object in coming to England, he assured
me honestly, was to study certain editions of Tibullus in the British
Museum. When he deigned to speak of Sarkeld, it was to say that Prince
Hermann was frequently there. I gave him no chance to be sly, though he
pushed for it, at a question of the Princess Ottilia's health.
The funeral pace of the block of cabs and omnibuses engrossed his
attention. Suddenly the Englishman afforded him an example of the
reserve of impetuosity we may contain. I had seen my aunt Dorothy in a
middle line of cabs coming from the City, and was darting in a
twinkling among wheels and shafts and nodding cab-horse noses to take
her hand and know the meaning of her presence in London. She had family
business to do: she said no more. I mentioned that I had checked my
father for a day or two. She appeared grateful. Her anxiety was extreme
that she might not miss the return train, so I relinquished her hand,
commanded the cabman to hasten, and turned to rescue Eckart—too young
and faithful a collegian not to follow his friend, though it were into
the lion's den—from a terrific entanglement of horseflesh and vehicles
brawled over by a splendid collision of tongues. Secure on the pavement
again, Eckart humbly acknowledged that the English tongue could come
out upon occasions. I did my best to amuse him.
Whether it amused him to see me take my seat in the House of Commons,
and hear a debate in a foreign language, I cannot say; but the only
pleasure of which I was conscious at that period lay in the thought
that he or his father, Baron vom Hof, might some day relate the
circumstance at Prince Ernest's table, and fix in Ottilia's mind the
recognition of my having tried to perform my part of the contract.
Beggared myself, and knowing Prince Hermann to be in Sarkeld, all I
hoped for was to show her I had followed the path she traced. My state
was lower: besides misfortune I now found myself exalted only to feel
my profound insignificance.
'The standard for the House is a man's ability to do things,' said
Charles Etherell, my friendly introductor, by whom I was passingly,
perhaps ironically, advised to preserve silence for two or three
sessions.
He counselled the study of Foreign Affairs for a present theme. I
talked of our management of them, in the strain of Dr. Julius von
Karsteg.
'That's journalism, or clippings from a bilious essay; it won't do for
the House,' he said. 'Revile the House to the country, if you like, but
not the country to the House.'
When I begged him to excuse my absurdity, he replied:
'It's full of promise, so long as you're silent.'
But to be silent was to be merely an obedient hound of the whip. And if
the standard for the House was a man's ability to do things, I was in
the seat of a better man. External sarcasms upon the House, flavoured
with justness, came to my mind, but if these were my masters
surrounding me, how indefinitely small must I be!
Leaving the House on that first night of my sitting, I received
Temple's congratulations outside, and, as though the sitting had
exhausted every personal sentiment, I became filled with his; under
totally new sensations, I enjoyed my distinction through the perception
of my old comrade's friendly jealousy.
'I'll be there, too, some day,' he said, moaning at the prospect of an
extreme age before such honours would befall him.
The society of Eckart prevented me from urging him to puff me up with
his talk as I should have wished, and after I had sent the German to be
taken care of by Mrs. Waddy, I had grown so accustomed to the worldly
view of my position that I was fearing for its stability. Threats of a
petition against me were abroad. Supposing the squire disinherited me,
could I stand? An extraordinary appetite for wealth, a novel
appreciation of it—which was, in truth, a voluntary enlistment into the
army of mankind, and the adoption of its passions—pricked me with an
intensity of hope and dread concerning my dependence on my grandfather.
I lay sleepless all night, tossing from Riversley to Sarkeld,
condemned, it seemed, to marry Janet and gain riches and power by
renouncing my hope of the princess and the glory belonging to her,
unless I should within a few hours obtain a show of figures at my
bankers.
I had promised Etherell to breakfast with him. A note—a faint
scream—despatched by Mrs. Waddy to Mr. Temple's house informed me that
'the men' were upon them. If so, they were the forerunners of a horde,
and my father was as good as extinguished. He staked everything on
success; consequently, he forfeited pity.
Good-bye to ambition, I thought, and ate heartily, considering robustly
the while how far lower than the general level I might avoid falling.
The report of the debates in morning papers—doubtless, more flowing
and, perhaps, more grammatical than such as I gave ear to overnight—had
the odd effect on me of relieving me from the fit of subserviency into
which the speakers had sunk me.
A conceit of towering superiority took its place, and as Etherell was
kind enough to draw me out and compliment me, I was attacked by a
tragic sense of contrast between my capacities and my probable
fortunes. It was open to me to marry Janet. But this meant the
loosening of myself with my own hand for ever from her who was my
mentor and my glory, to gain whom I was in the very tideway. I could
not submit to it, though the view was like that of a green field of the
springs passed by a climber up the crags. I went to Anna Penrhys to
hear a woman's voice, and partly told her of my troubles. She had heard
Mr. Hipperdon express his confident opinion that he should oust me from
my seat. Her indignation was at my service as a loan: it sprang up
fiercely and spontaneously in allusions to something relating to my
father, of which the Marquis of Edbury had been guilty. 'How you can
bear it!' she exclaimed, for I was not wordy. The exclamation, however,
stung me to put pen to paper—the woman was not so remote in me as not
to be roused by the woman. I wrote to Edbury, and to Heriot, bidding
him call on the young nobleman. Late at night I was at my father's door
to perform the act of duty of seeing him, and hearing how he had
entertained Eckart, if he was still master of his liberty. I should
have known him better: I expected silence and gloom. The windows were
lighted brilliantly. As the hall-door opened, a band of stringed and
wood instruments commenced an overture. Mrs. Waddy came to me in the
hall; she was unintelligible. One thing had happened to him at one hour
of the morning, and another at another hour. He was at one moment
suffering the hands of the 'officers' on his shoulder:
'And behold you, Mr. Harry! a knock, a letter from a messenger, and he
conquers Government!' It struck me that the epitome of his life had
been played in a day: I was quite incredulous of downright good
fortune. He had been giving a dinner followed by a concert, and the
deafening strains of the music clashed with my acerb spirit, irritating
me excessively. 'Where are those men you spoke of?' I asked her.
'Gone,' she replied, 'gone long ago!'
'Paid?' said I.
She was afraid to be precise, but repeated that they were long since
gone.
I singled Jorian DeWitt from among the crowd of loungers on the stairs
and landing between the drawing-rooms. 'Oh, yes, Government has struck
its flag to him,' Jorian said. 'Why weren't you here to dine? Alphonse
will never beat his achievement of to-day. Jenny and Carigny gave us a
quarter-of-an-hour before dinner—a capital idea!—“VEUVE ET BACHELIER.”
As if by inspiration. No preparation for it, no formal taking of seats.
It seized amazingly—floated small talk over the soup beautifully.'
I questioned him again.
'Oh, dear, yes; there can't be a doubt about it,' he answered, airily.
'Roy Richmond has won his game.'
Two or three urgent men round a great gentleman were extracting his
affable approbation of the admirable nature of the experiment of the
Chassediane before dinner. I saw that Eckart was comfortably seated,
and telling Jorian to provide for him in the matter of tobacco, I went
to my room, confused beyond power of thought by the sensible command of
fortune my father, fortune's sport at times, seemed really to have.
His statement of the circumstances bewildered me even more. He was in
no hurry to explain them; when we met next morning he waited for me to
question him, and said, 'Yes. I think we have beaten them so far!' His
mind was pre-occupied, he informed me, concerning the defence of a lady
much intrigued against, and resuming the subject: 'Yes, we have beaten
them up to a point, Richie. And that reminds me: would you have me go
down to Riversley and show the squire the transfer paper? At any rate
you can now start for Sarkeld, and you do, do you not? To-day:
to-morrow at latest.'
I insisted: 'But how, and in what manner has this money been paid?' The
idea struck me that he had succeeded in borrowing it.
'Transferred to me in the Bank, and intelligence of the fact sent to
Dettermain and Newson, my lawyers,' he replied. 'Beyond that, I know as
little as you, Richie, though indubitably I hoped to intimidate them.
If,' he added, with a countenance perfectly simple and frank, 'they
expect me to take money for a sop, I am not responsible, as I by no
means provoked it, for their mistake.
'I proceed. The money is useful to you, so I rejoice at it.'
Five and twenty thousand pounds was the amount.
'No stipulation was attached to it?'
'None. Of course a stipulation was implied: but of that I am not bound
to be cognizant.'
'Absurd!' I cried: 'it can't have come from the quarter you suspect.'
'Where else?' he asked.
I thought of the squire, Lady Edbury, my aunt, Lady Sampleman, Anna
Penrhys, some one or other of his frantic female admirers. But the
largeness of the amount, and the channel selected for the payment,
precluded the notion that any single person had come to succour him in
his imminent need, and, as it chanced, mine.
Observing that my speculations wavered, he cited numerous instances in
his life of the special action of Providence in his favour, and was
bold enough to speak of a star, which his natural acuteness would have
checked his doing before me, if his imagination had not been seriously
struck.
'You hand the money over to me, sir?' I said.
'Without a moment of hesitation, my dear boy,' he melted me by
answering.
'You believe you have received a bribe?'
'That is my entire belief—the sole conclusion I can arrive at. I will
tell you, Richie: the old Marquis of Edbury once placed five thousand
pounds to my account on a proviso that I should—neglect, is the better
word, my Case. I inherited from him at his death; of course his demise
cancelled the engagement. He had been the friend of personages
implicated. He knew. I suspect he apprehended the unpleasant position
of a witness.'
'But what was the stipulation you presume was implied?' said I.
'Something that passed between lawyers: I am not bound to be cognizant
of it. Abandon my claims for a few thousands? Not for ten, not for ten
hundred times the sum!'
To be free from his boisterous influence, which made my judgement as
unsteady as the weather-glass in a hurricane, I left my house and went
straight to Dettermain and Newson, who astonished me quite as much by
assuring me that the payment of the money was a fact. There was no
mystery about it. The intelligence and transfer papers, they said, had
not been communicated to them by the firm they were opposed to, but by
a solicitor largely connected with the aristocracy; and his letter had
briefly declared the unknown donator's request that legal proceedings
should forthwith be stopped. They offered no opinion of their own.
Suggestions of any kind, they seemed to think, had weight, and all of
them an equal weight, to conclude from the value they assigned to every
idea of mine. The name of the solicitor in question was Charles
Adolphus Bannerbridge. It was, indeed, my old, one of my oldest
friends; the same by whom I had been led to a feast and an evening of
fun when a little fellow starting in the London streets. Sure of
learning the whole truth from old Mr. Bannerbridge, I walked to his
office and heard that he had suddenly been taken ill. I strode on to
his house, and entered a house of mourning. The kind old man,
remembered by me so vividly, had died overnight. Miss Bannerbridge
perceived that I had come on an errand, and with her gentle good
breeding led me to speak of it. She knew nothing whatever of the sum of
money. She was, however, aware that an annuity had been regularly paid
through the intervention of her father. I was referred by her to a Mr.
Richards, his recently-established partner. This gentleman was ignorant
of the whole transaction.
Throughout the day I strove to combat the pressure of evidence in
favour of the idea that an acknowledgement of special claims had been
wrested from the enemy. Temple hardly helped me, though his solid sense
was dead against the notions entertained by my father and Jorian
DeWitt, and others besides, our elders. The payment of the sum through
the same channel which supplied the annuity, pointed distinctly to an
admission of a claim, he inclined to think, and should be supposed to
come from a personage having cause either to fear him or to assist him.
He set my speculations astray by hinting that the request for the
stopping of the case might be a blind. A gift of money, he said
shrewdly, was a singularly weak method of inducing a man to stop the
suit of a life-time. I thought of Lady Edbury; but her income was
limited, and her expenditure was not of Lady Sampleman, but it was
notorious that she loved her purse as well as my aunt Dorothy, and was
even more, in the squire's phrase, 'a petticoated parsimony.' Anna
Penrhys appeared the likelier, except for the fact that the
commencement of the annuity was long before our acquaintance with her.
I tried her on the subject. Her amazement was without a shadow of
reserve. 'It's Welsh, it's not English,' she remarked. I knew no
Welshwoman save Anna.
'Do you know the whole of his history?' said she. Possibly one of the
dozen unknown episodes in it might have furnished the clue, I agreed
with her.
The sight of twenty-one thousand pounds placed to my credit in the
Funds assuaged my restless spirit of investigation. Letters from the
squire and my aunt Dorothy urged me to betake myself to Riversley,
there finally to decide upon what my course should be.
'Now that you have the money, pray,' St. Parsimony wrote,—'pray be
careful of it. Do not let it be encroached on. Remember it is to serve
one purpose. It should be guarded strictly against every appeal for
aid,' etc., with much underlining.
My grandfather returned the papers. His letter said 'I shall not break
my word. Please to come and see me before you take steps right or
left.'
So here was the dawn again.
I could in a day or two start for Sarkeld. Meanwhile, to give my father
a lesson, I discharged a number of bills, and paid off the bond to
which Edbury's name was attached. My grandfather, I knew, was too
sincerely and punctiliously a gentleman in practical conduct to demand
a further inspection of my accounts. These things accomplished, I took
the train for Riversley, and proceeded from the station to Durstan,
where I knew Heriot to be staying. Had I gone straight to my
grandfather, there would have been another story to tell.