As the brothers confronted one another, the legitimate and the
base–born, the man of tact and the man of force, the luxurious and the
labourer, strangely unlike in many respects, more strangely alike in
others; each felt kindly and tenderly, yet timidly, for the other.
The old man thought of the lying wrong inflicted upon the stronger one
by their common father; the other felt the worse wrong—if possible—done
by himself to his brother. The measure of such things is not for us.
God knows, and visits, and forgives them.
Even by the failing light—for the sun was westering, and a cloud flowed
over him—each could see that the otherʼs face was not as it should be,
that the flight of weeks was drawing age on, more than the lapse of
years should.
“Garnet, you do a great deal too much. I shall recall my urgent
request, if you look so harassed and haggard. Take a holiday now for
a month, before the midsummer rents fall due. I will try to do without
you; though I may want you any day.”
“I will do nothing of the sort; work is needful for me—without it I
should die. But you also look very unwell. You must not attempt to
prescribe for me.”
“I have not been happy lately. By–and–by things will be better. What is
your impression of Mrs. Nowell Corklemore?”
“That she is an arrant hypocrite, unscrupulous, foul, and deadly.”
“Well, that is plain speaking; by no means complimentary. Poor Georgie,
I hope you misjudge her, as she says bad people do. But for the present
she is gone. There has been a great fight, all along, between her and
Eoa; they could not bear one another. And now my niece has discovered
a thing which brings me to her side in the matter, for she at least is
genuine.”
“That she is indeed, and genuinely passionate; you may trust her with
anything. She has been very rude indeed to me; and yet I like her
wonderfully. What has she discovered?”
“That Mrs. Corklemore is at the bottom of this horrible application for
a warrant against my son.”
“I can well believe it. It struck me in a moment; though I cannot see
her object. I never understand plotting.”
“Neither do I, Garnet; I only know she has made me insult the dearest
friend I had on earth.”
“Yes, Mr. Rosedew; I heard of it, and wondered at your weakness. But it
did not become me to interfere.”
“Certainly not: most certainly not. You could not expect me to bear it.
And the Rosedews never liked you.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Very probably they are right; for I do
not like myself. And you will not dislike, but hate me, when you know
what I have to say.”
Bull Garnetʼs mind was now made up. For months he had been thinking,
forecasting, doubting, wavering—a condition of mind so strange to him,
so adrift from all his landmarks, that this alone, without sense of
guilt, must have kept him in wretchedness.
Sir Cradock Nowell only said, “Keep it for another time. I cannot bear
any more excitement; I have had so much to–day.”
Bull Garnet looked at him sorrowfully. He could not bear to see his
brother beaten so by trouble, and to feel his own hard hand in it.
“Donʼt you know what they say of me? Oh, you know what they say of me;
and nothing of the kind in the family!” The old man seemed to prove
that there was, by the vague flashing of his eyes: “Garnet, you are my
brother; after all, you are my brother. And they say I am going mad;
and I know they will try to shut me up, without a horse, or a book,
or a boy to brush my trousers. Oh, Garnet, you have been bitterly
wronged, shamefully wronged, detestably; but you will not let your own
brother—brother, who has no sons now to protect him,—be shut up, and
made nothing of? Bull Garnet, promise me this, although we have so
wronged you.”
Garnet knew not what to do. Even he was taken aback, shocked by
this sudden outburst, which partly proved what it denied. And this
altogether changed the form of the confession he was come to make—and
changed it for the better.
“My brother”—it was the first time he had ever so addressed him; not
from diffidence, but from pride—”my brother, let us look at things,
if possible, as God made them. I have been injured no doubt, and so
my mother was; blasted, both of us, for life, according to the little
ideas of this creeping world. In many cases, the thief is the rogue;
in even more, the robbed one is the only villain. Now can you take the
large view of things which is forced upon us outsiders when we dare to
think at all?”
“I cannot think now of such abstract things. My mind is astray with
trouble. Did I ever tell you your motherʼs words, when she came here
ten or twelve years ago, and demanded a share of the property? Not for
her own sake, but for yours, to get you into some business.”
“No, I never heard of it. How it must have hurt her!” Bull Garnet was
astonished; because it had long been understood that his mother should
not be spoken of.
“And me as well. I gave her a cheque for a liberal sum, as I thought.
She tore it, and threw it at me. What more could I do? Did I deserve
her curse, Garnet? Is all this trouble come upon me because I did not
obey her?”
“I believe that you meant to do exactly what was right.”
“I hope—I believe, I did. And see how wrong she was in one part of
her prediction. She said that I and my father also should be punished
through you, through you, her only son. What a mistake that has proved!
You, who are my right arm and brain; my only hope and comfort!”
The old man came up, and looked with the deepest trust and admiration
at his unacknowledged brother. A few months ago, Bull Garnet would have
taken such a look as his truest and best revenge for the cruel wrong to
his mother. But now he fell away from it, and muttered something, in a
manner quite unlike his own. His mind was made up, he was come to tell
all; but how could he do it now, and wrench the old manʼs latest hope
away?
Then suddenly he remembered, or knew from his own feelings, that an
old manʼs last hope in earthly matters should rest upon no friend
or brother, not even upon a wife, but upon his own begotten, his
successors in the world. And what he had to say, while tearing all
reliance from himself, would replace it where it should be.
Meanwhile Sir Cradock Nowell, thinking that Garnet was too grateful for
a few kind words, followed him, and placed his slender tremulous and
pure–bred hand in the useful cross–bred palm which had sent Mr. Jupp
down the coal–shaft.
“Bull, you are my very best friend. After all, we are brothers. Promise
to defend me.”
But Garnet only withdrew his hand, and sighed, and could not look at
him.
“Oh, then, even you believe it; I see you do! It must be true. God have
mercy upon me!”
“Cradock, it is a cursed lie; you must not dwell upon it. Such thoughts
are spawn of madness; turn to another subject. Just tell me what is the
greatest thing one man can do to another?”
“To love him, I suppose, Garnet. But I donʼt care much for that sort of
thing, since I lost my children.”
“Yes, it is a grand thing to love; but far grander to forgive.”
“Is it? I am glad to hear it. I always could forgive.”
“Little things, you mean, no doubt. Slights and slurs—and so forth?”
“Yes, and great things also. But I am not what I was, Bull. You know
what I have been through.”
“Can you forgive as deep a wrong as one man ever did to another?”
“Yes, I dare say. I am sure I donʼt know. What makes you look at me
like that?”
“Because I shot your son Clayton; and because I did it on purpose.”
“Viley! my boy Viley! Oh, I had forgotten. What a stupid thing of me! I
thought he was dead somehow. Now, I will open the door for him, because
his hands are full. And let him put his game on the table—never mind
the papers—he always likes me to see it. Oh, Viley, how long you have
been away! What a bag you must have made! Come in, my boy; come in.”
Bull Garnetʼs heart cleaved to his side, as the old man opened the
door, and looked, with the leaping joy of a fatherʼs love, for his pet,
his beloved, his treasured one. But nothing except cold air came in.
“The passage is empty. Perhaps he is waiting, because his boots are
dirty. Tell him not to think twice about that. I am fidgety sometimes,
I know; and I scolded him last Friday. But now he may come anyhow, if
he will only come to me. I am so dull without him.”
“You will never see him more”—Bull Garnet whispered through a flood of
tears, like grass waving out of water—”until it pleases God to take you
home, where son and father go alike; sometimes one first, sometimes
other, as His holy will is. He came to an unholy end. I tell you
again—I shot him.”
“Excuse me; I donʼt quite understand. There was a grey hare, with a
nick in her ear, who came to the breakfast–room window all through the
hard weather last winter, and he promised me not to shoot her; and I am
sure that he cannot have done it, because he is so soft–hearted, and
that is why I love him so. Talk of Cradock—talk of Cradock! Perhaps he
is cleverer than Viley—though I never will believe it—but is he half so
soft and sweet? Will the pigeons sit on his shoulder so, and the dogs
nuzzle under his coat–lap? Tell me that—tell me that—Bull Garnet.”
He leaned on the strong arm of his steward, and looked eagerly for his
answer; then trembled with an exceeding great fear, to see that he was
weeping. That such a man should weep! But Garnet forced himself to
speak.
“You cannot listen to me now; I will come again, and talk to you. God
knows the agony to me; and worst of all that it is for nothing. Yet all
of it not a thousandth part of the anguish I have caused. Perhaps it is
wisest so. Perhaps it is for my childrenʼs sake that I, who have killed
your pet child, cannot make you know it. Yet it adds to my despair,
that I have killed the father too.”
Scarcely knowing voice from silence, dazed himself, and blurred, and
giddy—so strong is contagion of the mind—Bull Garnet went to the
stables, saddled a horse without calling groom, and rode off at full
gallop to Dr. Buller. By the time he got there his business habits and
wonted fashion of thought had returned, and he put what he came for in
lucid form, tersely, crisply, dryly, as if in the world there were no
such thing as ill–regulated emotion—except on the part of other people.
“Not a bit of it,” said Dr. Buller; “his mind is as sound as yours or
mine, and his constitution excellent. He has been troubled a good deal;
but bless me—I know a man who lost his three children in a month, and
could scarcely pay for their coffins, sir. And his wife only six weeks
afterwards. That is what I call trouble, sir!”
Bull Garnet knew, from his glistening eyes, and the quivering of his
grey locks, that the man he spoke of was himself. Reassured about Sir
Cradock, yet fearing to try him further at present, Mr. Garnet went
heavily homewards, after begging Dr. Buller to call, as if by chance,
at the Hall, observe, and attend to the master.
Heavily and wearily Bull Garnet went to the home which once had been
so sweet to him, and was now beloved so painfully. The storms of earth
were closing round him, only the stars of heaven were bright. Myriad as
the forest leaves, and darkly moving in like manner, fears, and doubts,
and miseries sprang and trembled through him.
No young maid at his door to meet him lovingly and gaily. None to say,
“Oh, darling father, how hungry you must be, dear!” Only Pearl, so wan
and cold, and scared of soft affection. And as she timidly approached,
then dropped her eyes before his gaze, and took his hat submissively,
as if she had no lips to kiss, no hand to lay on his shoulder, he saw
with one quick glance that still some new grief had befallen her, that
still another trouble was come to make its home with her.
“What is it, Pearl?” he asked her, sadly; “come in here and tell me.”
He never called her his Pearly now, his little native, or pretty
pet, as he used to do in the old days. They had dropped those little
endearments.
“You will be sorry to hear it—sorry, I mean, that it happened; but I
could not have done otherwise.”
“I never hear anything, now, Pearl, but what I am sorry to hear. This
will make little difference.”
“So I suppose,” she answered. “Mr. Pell has been here to–day,
and—and—oh, father, you know what.”
“Indeed I have not been informed of anything. What do I know of Mr.
Pell?”
“More than he does of you, sir. He asked me to be his wife.”
“He is a good man. But of course you said ‘No.’”
“Of course I did. Of course, of course. What else can I ever say?”
She leaned her white cheek on the high oak mantel, and a little deep
sob came from her heart.
“Would you have liked to say ‘Yes,’ Pearl?” her father asked very
softly, going to put his arm round her waist, and then afraid to do it.
“Oh no! oh no! At least, not yet, though I respect him very highly. But
I told him that I never could, and never could tell him the reason. And
oh, I was so sorry for him—he looked so hurt and disappointed.”
“You shall tell him the reason very soon, or rather the newspapers
shall.”
“Father, donʼt say that; dear father, you are bound for our sake. I
donʼt care for him one atom, father, compared with—compared with you, I
mean. Only I thought I must tell you, because—oh, you know what I mean.
And even if I did like him, what would it matter about me? Oh, father,
I often think that I have been too hard upon you, and all of it through
me, and my vile concealment!”
“My daughter, I am not worthy of you. Would God that you could forgive
me!”
“I have done it long ago, father. Do you think a child of yours could
help it, after all your sorrow?”
“My child, look kindly at me; try to look as if you loved me.”
She turned to him with such a look as a man only gets once in his life,
and then she fell upon his neck, and forgot the world and all it
held, except her own dear father. Wrong he might have done, wrong (no
doubt) he had done; but who was she, his little child, to remember it
against him? She lay for a moment in his arms, overcome with passion,
leaning back, as she had done there, when a weanling infant. For him
it was the grandest moment of his passionate life—a fatherʼs powerful
love, ennobled by the presence of his God. Such a moment teaches us
the grandeur of our race, the traces of a higher world stamped on us
indelibly. Then we feel, and try to own, that in spite of satire,
cynicism, and the exquisite refinements of the purest selfishness,
there is, in even the sharpest and the shallowest of us, something kind
and solid, some abiding element of the all–pervading goodness.
“Now I will go through with it”—Bull Garnet was recovering—”my own
child; go and fetch your brother, if it will not be too much for you.
If you think it will, only send him.”
“Father, I will fetch him. I may be able to help you both. And now I am
so much better.”
Presently she returned with Bob, who looked rather plagued and
uncomfortable, with a great slice of cork in one hand and a bottle of
gum in the other, and a regular housewife of needles in the lappet of
his coat. He was going to mount a specimen of a variety of “devilʼs
coach–horse,” which he had never seen before, and whose tail was forked
like a trident.
“Never can let me alone,” said Bob; “just ready to begin I was; and I
am sure to spoil his thorax. He is getting stiff every moment.”
Bull Garnet looked at him brightly and gladly, even at such a time.
Little as he knew or cared about the things that crawl and hop—as he
ignorantly put it—skilled no more in natural history than our early
painters were, yet from his own strong sense he perceived that his son
had a special gift; and a special gift is genius, and may (with good
luck) climb eminence. Then he thought of what he had to tell him, and
the power of his heart was gone.
It was the terror of this moment which had dwelt with him night and
day, more than the fear of public shame, of the gallows, or of hell.
To be loathed and scorned by his only son! Oh that Pearl had not been
so true; oh that Bob suspected something, or had even found it out for
himself! Then the father felt that now came part of his expiation.
Bob looked at him quite innocently with wonder and some fear. To him
“the governor” long had been the strangest of all puzzles, sometimes so
soft and loving, sometimes so hard and terrible. Perhaps poor Bob would
catch it now for his doings with Eoa.
“Sit down there, my son. Not there, but further from me. Donʼt be at
all afraid, my boy. I have no fault to find with you. I am far luckier
in my son, than you are in your father. You must try to bear terrible
news, Bob. Your sister long has borne it.”
Pearl, who was ghastly pale and trembling, stole a glance at each of
them from the dark end of the room, then came up bravely into the
lamplight, took Bobʼs hand and kissed him, and sat close by to comfort
him.
Bull Garnet sighed from the depths of his heart. His children seemed to
be driven from him, and to crouch together in fear of him.
“It serves me right. I know that, of course. That only makes it the
worse to bear.”
“Father, what is it?” cried Bob, leaping up, and dropping his
cork–slice and gum–bottle; “whatever the matter is, father, tell me,
that I may stand by you.”
“You cannot stand by me in this. When you know what it is, you will fly
from me.”
“Will I, indeed! A likely thing. Oh, father, you think I am such a
soft, because I am fond of little things.”
“Would you stand by your father, Bob, if you knew that he was a
murderer?”
“Oh come,” said Bob, “you are drawing it a little too strong, dad. You
never could be that, you know.”
“I not only can be, but am, my son.”
Father and son looked at one another. The governor standing square and
broad, with his shoulders thrown well back, and no trace of emotion in
form or face, except that his quick wide nostrils quivered, and his
lips were white. The stripling gazing up at him, seeking for some sign
of jest, seeking for a ray of laughter in his fatherʼs eyes; too young
to comprehend the power and fury of large passion.
Ere either spoke another word—for the father was hurt at the sonʼs
delay, and the son felt all abroad in his head—between them glided
Pearl, the daughter, the sister, the gentle woman—the one most wronged
of all, and yet the quickest to forgive it.
“Darling, he did it for my sake,” she whispered to her brother, though
it cut through her heart to say it. “Father, oh father, Bob is so slow;
donʼt be angry with him. Come to me a moment, father. Oh, how I love
and honour you!”
Those last few words to the passionate man were like heaven poured into
hell. That a child of his should still honour him! He kissed her with
tenfold the love young man has for maiden; then he turned away and
wept, as if the earth was water.
Very little more was said. Pearl went away to Bob, and whispered how
the fatal grief befell; and Bob wept great tears for the sake of all,
and most of all for his fatherʼs sake. Then, as the father lay cramped
up upon the little sofa, wrestling with the power of life and the
promise of death, Bob came up, and kissed him dearly on his rugged
forehead.
“Is that you, my own dear son? God is far too good to me.”