AN ODD COMPACT.
Age, that forgets its yesterday’s company, often puts one to shame
in the memories of long ago. I had pondered the problem, even while
proposing it, of Joshua’s introduction to my uncle; and, behold! the
dear soul recognized his guest at the first mention. His name was
associated indirectly, it is true, with a momentous decision in his
own life; yet, even so--well, one was not wont to look upon Uncle
Jenico’s memory as the active partner in his constitution. It saved me
some perplexity.
I had left Joshua by his own request in the porch while I went to
prepare my relative, who I found much refreshed by his sleep, and to
whom I briefly recapitulated the tale of my rally with this old
client, as I might call him.
“Bring him in, by all means,” he said, adjusting his spectacles, and
then beaming at me through them. “Poor soul, poor fellow, to have
suffered all these years under the stigma of an unfounded slander!”
He spoke with a new-awakened loudness; the door was close at hand; the
visitor heard. In a moment he came striding in, hat in hand, his eyes
glittering.
“Mr. Paxton,” he said; “Mr. Paxton! You are worthy to be this dear
lad’s guardian! I can say no more.”
The two men shook hands, with a full understanding, it seemed; and a
pregnant minute ticked itself out between them.
“You come off a long journey?” asked my uncle, at the end.
“Off a long journey, sir--a journey of six years. I had hardly
expected to find this haven by the way. I hardly know now what it
means; yet Fate grant it has a meaning!”
“You are making a considerable stay?”
“If I have not lost the faculty to rest. I don’t know. I am all
confounded at present.”
“He is seeking for a treasure hidden on these coasts,” I put in, and I
could have put in nothing apter. My uncle kindled.
“A treasure!” he cried. “Why, so am I, Mr. Pilbrow. Only, I gather, I
have the advantage of you in having already collected a part of mine.
And did you read of yours, too, in Morant?”
“Morant, sir!” said the bookseller. “No, his name was Victor--Carolus
Victor.”
He checked himself instantly--jealously. He had been carried away
emotionally, I think, over his reception. But in the same breath his
reserve was gone.
“You shall have the whole story from me,” he said; “but not now. Give
me time to order my thoughts, to realize what this encounter means to
me.”
“Certainly,” said my uncle, kindly. And being all openness and
simplicity himself, he proceeded to relate to our visitor the entire
history of our sojourn in Dunberry, and of the events and prospects
which had brought us there.
“The result has justified my utmost hopes,” he ended with,
enthusiastically; and then cast a sudden wistful look at me. “It is
something in an otherwise empty life, Mr. Pilbrow, to have this object
in accumulating. Heaven has seen fit, sir, to deny me the blessing of
a family, lest by my improvidence I turned it into a curse. But it has
compensated with the left hand while it withheld the right. What
prouder trust to have committed to one than the welfare of the child
of him who died to prove the truth!”
The visitor stepped back, shading his eyes with his hand.
“You rebuke me, sir,” he said in a stifled voice; “you teach me. Is
_this_ the meaning, the atonement? If I, too, might so earn quittance
of this curse of emptiness! _The child of him who died to prove the
truth!_ My God, my God! To bequeath to him the fruits of this so
wretched quest! To turn the curse into a blessing!”
He advanced, and seized my uncle’s hand with a strenuous entreaty.
“Let me be joint trustee with you. By that sacred life laid down for
mine, I have a right. If I could so convert this evil--to enrich his
son--so perhaps to earn rest.”
My uncle was distinctly snuffling. He took off his spectacles and
wiped them, and put them on again tremulously.
“So be it, Mr. Pilbrow,” he said. “We have been two selfish souls,
perhaps. We will win our redemption through Richard.”
Thus was I made the inheritor of phantom fortunes. I felt quite
inclined to put on airs, as the sole legatee to a vast atmospheric
estate. Mr. Pilbrow even came to claim me with some show of kind
judicial authority, as if the law had appointed him my part guardian.
But that was by-and-by.
Now, he uttered a sound, as if his emotions had been too much for him,
and stepped back.
“I must go,” he said. “You will excuse me. This wonder--this
kindness--I am unused; it overwhelms me. I must rest the body, even if
the brain works. You will let me come and see you again?”
“But why not accept a----” began my uncle.
“No, no,” he interrupted him, gasping. “I understand your generosity,
sir. I have stood, I can stand the rack. There are limits to my
endurance of benignity--such human consideration. I have a good bed at
the Flask. I entreat you to let me go--to----”
He left hurriedly. I would have accompanied him; but Uncle Jenico,
with a better delicacy, detained me. The moment the door slammed on
him he smacked one hand decisively in the palm of the other.
“That man a murderer!” he cried. “Richard, I wish your Mr. Quayle no
worser fate than to die in refuting such another calumny!”