MAKING IT UP.
There was rejoicing in the house of Robert Gates, as over a prodigal
returned, when Richard Ferrier avowed that he had been mistaken all
through in his quarrel with his brother, and that he was now only
anxious to acknowledge his error, and to do his best to set things
going again on the old footing. But he had some days to wait before he
could make his confession.
Thornsett Edge had remained unoccupied, for there was some difficulty
in letting a furnished house near a deserted village. People did not
seem to care about the vicinity of all those empty shells of homes. So
Roland had decided to occupy it again, and he was coming down there to
get things ready for his aunt's reception, and was making a few visits
to old friends on his way. He had written down to the old couple in
charge to have the place ready, as he might come down any day.
Two days passed and he had not come, and Richard was getting tired of
the constant inquiries and congratulations which assailed him at The
Hollies. He thought he would go home, and be there to welcome Roland
when he arrived. So he sent over his portmanteau, and took up his
quarters in his old room at Thornsett Edge. He was in a very tender
and remorseful frame of mind in those days. He wandered all over the
old house, full filled of memories of the time when he and his brother
played together there as children; of the time when, later, they
thrashed each other as schoolboys, with right good will. There were
haunting thoughts of the dissension that had grown up between them, and
of the shadow that the knowledge of it had cast upon their father's
deathbed. The necessity which he felt himself to be under of keeping
a sharp look-out for John Hatfield, fortunately served as a kind of
antidote to the rush of memories and associations which came over
Richard, now that he was once again in his home.
He walked down to the village to seek out the few 'hands' who had clung
like rooks to their old haunts, and there he saw sad sights and heard
sad stories enough to have driven him mad had he not known that it
would soon be in his power to set things in some degree right again. He
resolved, and felt sure of Roland's co-operation in his scheme, to seek
out as many of the old 'hands' as could be got word of, and to give
each of them enough to get a home together again.
Of course he thought often of Miss Stanley; but the past months of
unusual action and changed surroundings had altered his feeling for
her, which was fortunate for him, since he had falsely accused his own
brother to her--a meanness which he knew it to be quite impossible for
such a woman as Clare ever to forget or forgive. He thought of her now
without any of the old passion, as he might have thought of one who had
died long before, or of one whom he had loved in some other life.
This did not prevent him from feeling furiously jealous of Litvinoff,
to whom he seemed to have transferred all the anger that had burned in
him against his brother, intensified by a galling consciousness of the
complete success which Litvinoff had achieved in his attempt to deceive
and mislead him. There should be a reckoning for that, Richard thought.
He felt glad he had always mistrusted the man. It showed that his
judgment was worth something sometimes, and this pleased his self-love.
On the third day came a telegram from Matlock, which said that Roland
would be at home that evening. Richard roamed about the house in
restless impatience all day. How should they meet? He should not dare
to go to the door to greet his brother lest he should imagine that it
was a renewal of hostilities, not a welcome home, that was intended.
Richard had no eye for dramatic effects, nor any leaning thereto, but
he charged the old people to say nothing of his presence, and to leave
him to announce himself to his brother when he should think well.
His brother would have done exactly the same thing from absolutely
opposite motives.
So when Roland walked up to his home in the teeth of the wild March
wind the only welcome that met him was that of the old woman in charge,
and this seemed to him to be so inconsequently effusive, and the
good lady herself seemed so unreasonably radiant, that he was quite
flattered. It was pleasant to him to be appreciated and admired, even
by a 'person in charge.'
'The fire's i' the dining-room, Mr Roland,' she said; 'an' I'll dish
ye up the supper in less nor half a minute, sir. It's a glad day for
Thornsett as sees yer back agen.'
Mrs Brock's son had worked in the mill--a fact which made the
anticipated reconciliation peculiarly interesting to her.
Richard from his ambush in his own room heard the greeting, heard
the well-known voice giving orders about rugs and hat-boxes in the
well-known tones. Then he heard doors open and close. After a while a
savoury smell from the hot supper that was being carried in rose to his
altitude. The dining-room door was opened, and shut several times.
At last it was closed with a more decided touch, and in the noise of
its closing was a settled sound as of a door that did not mean to open
again just yet. Richard knew that the supper had been cleared away,
and that Roland was most likely assisting digestion with tobacco and
grog. This would be the time, he decided, to put in an appearance and
to get through his proposed reconciliation. He went softly downstairs,
and paused a moment with his hand on the dining-room door. The house
was very still. As he stood there he heard a cinder fall from the fire
in the dining-room, and the great hall clock at the foot of the stairs
ticked louder than usual, as it seemed. He turned the handle and went
in. Roland was sitting in the big arm-chair by the fire where their
father had been used to sit. As the door opened he looked up with a
sort of displeased curiosity to see who it was that had the assurance
to enter unannounced. When he saw who it was he gave a start, and the
expression of his face changed to something deeper and sterner.
He got up.
'I understood from Gates,' he said, 'that you renounced all claim to be
in this house so long as half the possible rent was paid you. I mean to
pay you your half. May I ask, then, what you want here?'
'I want to beg your pardon,' began Richard, his hand still on the
lock--when his brother interrupted him with,--
'Hadn't you better close the door? I suppose you don't want all the
world to hear anything you may have to say.'
His tone was so icily cold that the other found it hard to go on as he
had intended. He did his best, however.
'I am very sorry for all that happened in the autumn. I was quite
deceived and misled, and I beg your pardon. I can't say more, and I
hope you'll let bygones be bygones.'
He held out his hand. At this point in the scene Dick had fancied that
his brother would clasp his hand with reciprocating affection, and all
would be forgiven and forgotten. But the other actor evidently intended
a different 'reading' of the part assigned him. He made no movement to
meet the outstretched hand. On the contrary, he put his hands in his
pockets with a too expressive gesture, and was silent.
'Come, Roland,' said Dick, who, knowing himself to have been in the
wrong, displayed a patience which surprised himself; 'make it up, old
man.'
'I am not sure,' said the other slowly, 'that I care to make it up, as
you call it. No "making-up" can alter all that has gone wrong through
your foolishness. I've gone through the worst of the trouble now, and,
to tell you the truth, I'm not inclined to lay myself open to any more
experiences of this kind. You might be "deceived and misled" again.'
Richard, who had remained standing, gave the slightest possible stamp
of impatience, which his brother did not observe.
'And as for the money,' he went on, 'I dare say I can do as well
without it as with it.'
'Look here,' said Dick, his face flushing hotly; 'if you suppose I care
a straw about the dirty money, you're mistaken; only one of us can't
have any without the other now. Come, Roland, be friends, if it's only
for the old dad's sake.'
Roland seemed to have what the children call the 'black dog on his
shoulder,' but this appeal was not lost. He made an effort to overcome
the resentment and bitterness that filled him, and after a moment held
out his hand, saying,--
'Very well, I'll shake hands. I suppose we shall manage to scrape along
together as well as a good many brothers.'
And this was the reconciliation that Richard had had his heart full of
for the last three or four days. It was piteously unlike his dreams of
it.
When they had shaken hands, Dick sat down. There was a silence--a very
awkward silence. Roland passed the whisky along the table, and the
other mechanically helped himself.
'I think,' Roland said presently, 'that you owe me an explanation of
all this.'
'Of course I do,' assented Richard eagerly; 'but you are so--well,
unapproachable; but I'll tell you every word about it,' which he did,
omitting no particulars which bore on the case.
'So he called her Mrs Litvinoff, did he?' was Roland's comment on the
Petrovitch-Ferrier episode at London Bridge. 'I should think she had
just taken the name by chance, but for one thing.'
'And that is?'
'You say she lived in that house I saw Litvinoff go into the day we
split. It must have been Litvinoff, and he must have been going to her;
but it's very strange how he ever knew her. And was this really _all_
the ground you had for doing what you did?' There was contempt in his
tone.
'No,' said Richard. 'You went away on a "mysterious holiday" just when
she disappeared, and that set all the village tongues wagging, and
first made me wonder and suspect. Now I _know_ I was wrong; but if you
don't mind, Roland, I wish you'd tell me _why_ you went just then. I've
told you everything.'
'The whole thing is over and done with now,' he answered; 'and after
to-night I don't want to ever speak about it; but I will tell you if
you like. I went away because I saw you were beginning to care for
Clare Stanley, and I was beginning to care too, and I thought that if I
went away I could pull through it, and that you would make the running
and be happy with her, but I found I couldn't do it, and I came back
and did my best to cut you out, as you did by me.'
'Oh, Roland, what a good fellow you were to think of such a thing!'
said Dick, to whom a generous action like this, even though only
attempted, could not fail to appeal most strongly. 'But how is it now?'
he went on, stung by a host of conflicting feelings. 'Have _you_ made
the running? Have you won her?'
'No!' he answered bitterly. 'The closing of the mill settled that for
me as well as for you. Some one else has had as good a chance as ours,
though, and has made a better use of it. Count Litvinoff is a constant
visitor at the house where she is, and I don't doubt she will marry
him; unless, indeed, he is married already. I think we ought to try and
find that out.'
'Married or not, he is a damned scoundrel!' cried Richard; 'and he
shall not marry her. She would never look at me again, I know; but I
hope you may win her yet, Roland.'
'My chance is gone for ever. I wish I'd never had that Litvinoff down
here. But who could have foreseen this?'
'We've both been fools.'
Roland did not seem to relish this broad statement.
'I can't think how,' he was beginning, when Mrs Brock came in with
coals, and almost purred with pleasure at seeing the two amicably
drinking their whisky at the same hearth. When she had left the room
Richard rose.
'Look here, old man,' he said; 'I'm as sorry as a fellow can be about
all this, and I can't think how I could have been such a fool. That's
what you were going to say, wasn't it? But since we're agreed on that,
don't let's say any more about it. Forgive and forget, and I hope you
will be happy yet--with Miss Stanley. Let's agree to let this subject
alone for a bit. I think I'll have a run round the garden before I turn
in. Good-night.'
'Good-night,' Roland answered, but in a manner whose evident effort
after cordiality made the failure of that effort the more painful. 'I
shall go to bed; I'm dead beat--been knocking about all day.' Then they
shook hands again, and Richard went out.
He had thought that Roland would have met his apologies with ready
acceptance--his revived brotherly love with equal enthusiasm--and the
nature of the reconciliation jarred upon him. And yet, as he told
himself, he thoroughly deserved it all. No doubt time would soften his
brother's sense of injury, and some day they might be as good friends
again as they had been before Clare Stanley's prettiness had come,
like a will-o'-the-wisp, to lead them into all sorts of follies. He
tried to think he would be glad if she married Roland. Anything, he
thought, rather than that she should marry Litvinoff. He passed the
limits of the garden and strolled down the road, deep in thought. It
was only when he had nearly reached the mill that he remembered with
a start that he had told his brother nothing about John Hatfield and
his revengeful projects. However, Roland could come to no harm now--he
was probably safe in bed--and he could tell him in the morning. So he
strolled on, smoking reflectively, and with a heart not light.