Misfortunes, saith the adage, never come singly. There is little doubt
that troubles are exceedingly gregarious in their nature, and flying
in flocks, are apt to perch capriciously; crowding on the heads of some
poor wights until there is not an inch of room left on their unlucky
crowns, and taking no more notice of others who offer as good
resting-places for the soles of their feet, than if they had no
existence. It may have happened that a flight of troubles brooding over
London, and looking out for Joseph Willet, whom they couldn’t find,
darted down haphazard on the first young man that caught their fancy,
and settled on him instead. However this may be, certain it is that on
the very day of Joe’s departure they swarmed about the ears of Edward
Chester, and did so buzz and flap their wings, and persecute him, that
he was most profoundly wretched.
It was evening, and just eight o’clock, when he and his father, having
wine and dessert set before them, were left to themselves for the first
time that day. They had dined together, but a third person had been
present during the meal, and until they met at table they had not seen
each other since the previous night.
Edward was reserved and silent. Mr Chester was more than usually gay;
but not caring, as it seemed, to open a conversation with one whose
humour was so different, he vented the lightness of his spirit in smiles
and sparkling looks, and made no effort to awaken his attention. So they
remained for some time: the father lying on a sofa with his accustomed
air of graceful negligence; the son seated opposite to him with downcast
eyes, busied, it was plain, with painful and uneasy thoughts.
‘My dear Edward,’ said Mr Chester at length, with a most engaging laugh,
‘do not extend your drowsy influence to the decanter. Suffer THAT to
circulate, let your spirits be never so stagnant.’
Edward begged his pardon, passed it, and relapsed into his former state.
‘You do wrong not to fill your glass,’ said Mr Chester, holding up his
own before the light. ‘Wine in moderation--not in excess, for that makes
men ugly--has a thousand pleasant influences. It brightens the eye,
improves the voice, imparts a new vivacity to one’s thoughts and
conversation: you should try it, Ned.’
‘Ah father!’ cried his son, ‘if--’
‘My good fellow,’ interposed the parent hastily, as he set down his
glass, and raised his eyebrows with a startled and horrified expression,
‘for Heaven’s sake don’t call me by that obsolete and ancient name. Have
some regard for delicacy. Am I grey, or wrinkled, do I go on crutches,
have I lost my teeth, that you adopt such a mode of address? Good God,
how very coarse!’
‘I was about to speak to you from my heart, sir,’ returned Edward, ‘in
the confidence which should subsist between us; and you check me in the
outset.’
‘Now DO, Ned, DO not,’ said Mr Chester, raising his delicate hand
imploringly, ‘talk in that monstrous manner. About to speak from
your heart. Don’t you know that the heart is an ingenious part of
our formation--the centre of the blood-vessels and all that sort of
thing--which has no more to do with what you say or think, than your
knees have? How can you be so very vulgar and absurd? These anatomical
allusions should be left to gentlemen of the medical profession. They
are really not agreeable in society. You quite surprise me, Ned.’
‘Well! there are no such things to wound, or heal, or have regard for. I
know your creed, sir, and will say no more,’ returned his son.
‘There again,’ said Mr Chester, sipping his wine, ‘you are wrong. I
distinctly say there are such things. We know there are. The hearts of
animals--of bullocks, sheep, and so forth--are cooked and devoured, as
I am told, by the lower classes, with a vast deal of relish. Men are
sometimes stabbed to the heart, shot to the heart; but as to speaking
from the heart, or to the heart, or being warm-hearted, or cold-hearted,
or broken-hearted, or being all heart, or having no heart--pah! these
things are nonsense, Ned.’
‘No doubt, sir,’ returned his son, seeing that he paused for him to
speak. ‘No doubt.’
‘There’s Haredale’s niece, your late flame,’ said Mr Chester, as a
careless illustration of his meaning. ‘No doubt in your mind she was all
heart once. Now she has none at all. Yet she is the same person, Ned,
exactly.’
‘She is a changed person, sir,’ cried Edward, reddening; ‘and changed by
vile means, I believe.’
‘You have had a cool dismissal, have you?’ said his father. ‘Poor Ned!
I told you last night what would happen.--May I ask you for the
nutcrackers?’
‘She has been tampered with, and most treacherously deceived,’ cried
Edward, rising from his seat. ‘I never will believe that the knowledge
of my real position, given her by myself, has worked this change. I know
she is beset and tortured. But though our contract is at an end, and
broken past all redemption; though I charge upon her want of firmness
and want of truth, both to herself and me; I do not now, and never will
believe, that any sordid motive, or her own unbiassed will, has led her
to this course--never!’
‘You make me blush,’ returned his father gaily, ‘for the folly of your
nature, in which--but we never know ourselves--I devoutly hope there is
no reflection of my own. With regard to the young lady herself, she has
done what is very natural and proper, my dear fellow; what you yourself
proposed, as I learn from Haredale; and what I predicted--with no great
exercise of sagacity--she would do. She supposed you to be rich, or
at least quite rich enough; and found you poor. Marriage is a civil
contract; people marry to better their worldly condition and improve
appearances; it is an affair of house and furniture, of liveries,
servants, equipage, and so forth. The lady being poor and you poor
also, there is an end of the matter. You cannot enter upon these
considerations, and have no manner of business with the ceremony. I
drink her health in this glass, and respect and honour her for her
extreme good sense. It is a lesson to you. Fill yours, Ned.’
‘It is a lesson,’ returned his son, ‘by which I hope I may never profit,
and if years and experience impress it on--’
‘Don’t say on the heart,’ interposed his father.
‘On men whom the world and its hypocrisy have spoiled,’ said Edward
warmly, ‘Heaven keep me from its knowledge.’
‘Come, sir,’ returned his father, raising himself a little on the sofa,
and looking straight towards him; ‘we have had enough of this. Remember,
if you please, your interest, your duty, your moral obligations, your
filial affections, and all that sort of thing, which it is so very
delightful and charming to reflect upon; or you will repent it.’
‘I shall never repent the preservation of my self-respect, sir,’ said
Edward. ‘Forgive me if I say that I will not sacrifice it at your
bidding, and that I will not pursue the track which you would have me
take, and to which the secret share you have had in this late separation
tends.’
His father rose a little higher still, and looking at him as though
curious to know if he were quite resolved and earnest, dropped gently
down again, and said in the calmest voice--eating his nuts meanwhile,
‘Edward, my father had a son, who being a fool like you, and, like you,
entertaining low and disobedient sentiments, he disinherited and cursed
one morning after breakfast. The circumstance occurs to me with a
singular clearness of recollection this evening. I remember eating
muffins at the time, with marmalade. He led a miserable life (the son,
I mean) and died early; it was a happy release on all accounts; he
degraded the family very much. It is a sad circumstance, Edward, when a
father finds it necessary to resort to such strong measures.
‘It is,’ replied Edward, ‘and it is sad when a son, proffering him his
love and duty in their best and truest sense, finds himself repelled
at every turn, and forced to disobey. Dear father,’ he added, more
earnestly though in a gentler tone, ‘I have reflected many times on what
occurred between us when we first discussed this subject. Let there be
a confidence between us; not in terms, but truth. Hear what I have to
say.’
‘As I anticipate what it is, and cannot fail to do so, Edward,’ returned
his father coldly, ‘I decline. I couldn’t possibly. I am sure it would
put me out of temper, which is a state of mind I can’t endure. If
you intend to mar my plans for your establishment in life, and the
preservation of that gentility and becoming pride, which our family
have so long sustained--if, in short, you are resolved to take your own
course, you must take it, and my curse with it. I am very sorry, but
there’s really no alternative.’
‘The curse may pass your lips,’ said Edward, ‘but it will be but empty
breath. I do not believe that any man on earth has greater power to call
one down upon his fellow--least of all, upon his own child--than he has
to make one drop of rain or flake of snow fall from the clouds above us
at his impious bidding. Beware, sir, what you do.’
‘You are so very irreligious, so exceedingly undutiful, so horribly
profane,’ rejoined his father, turning his face lazily towards him, and
cracking another nut, ‘that I positively must interrupt you here. It is
quite impossible we can continue to go on, upon such terms as these. If
you will do me the favour to ring the bell, the servant will show you
to the door. Return to this roof no more, I beg you. Go, sir, since
you have no moral sense remaining; and go to the Devil, at my express
desire. Good day.’
Edward left the room without another word or look, and turned his back
upon the house for ever.
The father’s face was slightly flushed and heated, but his manner was
quite unchanged, as he rang the bell again, and addressed the servant on
his entrance.
‘Peak--if that gentleman who has just gone out--’
‘I beg your pardon, sir, Mr Edward?’
‘Were there more than one, dolt, that you ask the question?--If that
gentleman should send here for his wardrobe, let him have it, do you
hear? If he should call himself at any time, I’m not at home. You’ll
tell him so, and shut the door.’
So, it soon got whispered about, that Mr Chester was very unfortunate
in his son, who had occasioned him great grief and sorrow. And the
good people who heard this and told it again, marvelled the more at his
equanimity and even temper, and said what an amiable nature that man
must have, who, having undergone so much, could be so placid and so
calm. And when Edward’s name was spoken, Society shook its head, and
laid its finger on its lip, and sighed, and looked very grave; and those
who had sons about his age, waxed wrathful and indignant, and hoped, for
Virtue’s sake, that he was dead. And the world went on turning round, as
usual, for five years, concerning which this Narrative is silent.