THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
Michael Berrington walked home alone, but he was no longer lonely.
In his hand he held a tiny bunch of primroses, in his heart was already
enshrined a small oval face with hazel stars for eyes, and alluring
dimples which might well have tempted St. Anthony's self.
He was dreaming of dimples, eyes, and all the pretty foolishness of a
youthful lover's first great passion as he entered his home.
Comrade, the faithful deerhound, met him at the entrance.
"There is news, yonder, master, but I cannot quite understand it," the
great animal tried dumbly to explain, and restlessly led the way back
towards the library.
Lights were burning, the door open, and old Bates the butler coming
nervously forward, when a voice, rich, sweet, and powerful, though
broken once and again by an explanatory hiccough, broke the silence:
"The jolly Muse, her wings to try,
No frolic flights need take,
But round the bowl would dip and fly
Like swallows round a lake.
And that I think's a reason fair
To drink and fill again."
"Mr. Michael, Mr. Michael," faltered Bates, in nervous agitation.
But Michael Berrington put him aside with commanding hand.
He knew he was going in to greet his father for the first time in his
life.
Stephen Berrington lolled back in the wide armchair. Before him on a
table was placed a large bowl of punch, in his mouth was a long pipe.
He was very much at home.
He rose, smiling, at sight of the tall figure on the threshold. If he
had been drinking he was by no means drunken, and his appearance was
that of a very handsome but somewhat dissipated man of fifty, dressed
in the height of fashion, his powdered wig a little awry, but his eyes
bright and wonderfully amused at the present moment. His manner was
perfectly friendly.
"Why, Michael!" he cried. "Demn it all, lad, if the first sight of you
doesn't make me feel an old man. Come, you'll shake hands with a
prodigal father? You're not your poor mother's son, else."
He held out a welcoming hand as he spoke, but Michael ignored it,
dropping into a chair.
In all his visions and pictures of his father's return he had never
imagined this.
Stephen Berrington did not appear to take offence at his son's refusal
of greeting, but sank back into his chair, refilling his glass with
punch.
"Old Bates hasn't forgotten his mixture," he observed drily, "though
it's nearly thirty years since I tasted it. Thirty years! Well!
you'll have heard the story, Mike, and I suppose have long since
written me down as a black-hearted devil who's no fit company for
honest men."
He passed his hand wearily over his brow as he spoke.
Michael flushed. Though he had expected his father's return
eventually, the shock of this unlooked-for home-coming had thrown him
off his balance.
"I was with my mother and grandfather on their death-beds," said he,
shortly.
His father sighed.
"Yes," he said. "I don't wonder you refused my hand, lad; yet there's
more excuse than you know of. I can't tell you all now, but I
will--one day."
Michael was twisting the stems of a little bunch of primroses between
nervous fingers.
"Ralph Conyers is dead also," he replied unsteadily.
Stephen Berrington looked up sharply.
"I know," he answered. "Ah yes! Of course _that_ story has been
drummed well into you. A moment's weakness, and a man's whole lifetime
to be cursed for it."
"It cost his friends more."
"Oh, aye; I know. But what of it? If I had not spoken we should have
all been strung up in a row. I could not have saved Pryor and
Farquhar. No, nor Conyers either, for that matter. As it was I saved
my own skin, and never really hurt theirs. What blame?"
"Need a gentleman ask that question?"
"Tra, la, la! Sir Henry always was a good schoolmaster there. A
trifle out of date, though, my son, as you will find. Why, even Morry
himself took my word for it and shook hands afterwards."
"Morry?"
"Morice Conyers--poor old Ralph's son. A buck worth having for a son,
too. Why! we're the best of friends."
"Morice Conyers your friend?"
"You look unbelieving, my Bayard, but it is true that I drove down here
on friend Morry's coach, and, had it not been for my ardent longing to
embrace you and see again these ancestral halls, I should now be
toasting the prettiest eyes in the kingdom, and drinking to the august
health of our liege lord Prince Florizel, who is at present between the
sheets in his royal residence at Carlton House, suffering from an
attack of indigestion."
Then, suddenly dropping his lighter tone of badinage, the speaker leant
forward.
"Look here, Michael," he said,--and there lacked not a certain wistful
pleading in his tones,--"others have agreed to let the past be
forgotten; can't my own son join them there? It's true my crop of wild
oats was plentiful enough. As for that Jacobite affair, I--well--I've
often wished that I'd been in Pryor's place, and written finis on a
jumble of mistakes and a life which was not then quite such a wretched
failure."
"If it had been only----"
"Roast me, sir! Are you my Lord High Inquisitor to ask what else I've
been doing through these years, and call me blackguard for everything
not explained?"
"You forget my mother."
Stephen Berrington's hand dropped, whilst his blue eyes wavered and
fell before the stern gaze of the younger man.
"Aye," he muttered, "I'll cry 'Mea culpa' there. My poor little Norah.
Yes, I'll admit I was to blame."
"You broke her heart."
"Slit me if I would, had she ever won mine! The marriage was a
mistake. But come, lad, I've had enough of platitudes and
fault-finding. I come to make merry, and find a dour face as ill to
meet as Calvin's own,--and, as for drink, the bowl is empty. Ha, ha!
I'm for Langton Hall and a night of it with my merry friends. Tra
lal-de-lal! You may come, too; an' you list, son Michael. You'll
remember your filial duties an' fall on my neck in welcome after a
stoop or so of punch and some of Conyers' boasted port. Rare bucks
those, and the devil of a time awaiting us. Cast glum looks to the
dogs, boy, and join me. You'll be welcome. I'll stake my head on
that. Steenie Berrington's son needn't fear the cold shoulder."
He rose, staggering slightly, and laying a hand on his son's arm to
steady himself.
Something in the touch sent a thrill--half shudder--through Michael.
_His father_. Yes! _His father_.
Old Sir Henry's dying words came back to him vividly enough.
"If he returns I leave the honour of Berrington in your hands. Swear
you will watch over it always."
Yes, he had sworn that he would hold the honour even when it lay in
another's power to trample it under foot; and swiftly it came to him
that he could not keep that oath and stand against this newly-found
parent. For the honour of his house he must be his father's friend and
companion.
Perhaps he found it less hard to yield, feeling that helpless touch on
his arm, and seeing that half-pleading, half-defiant look on the
handsome but weak face.
"Yes," he replied. "I will come."
Sir Stephen greeted the decision with a roar of laughter.
"Well done, Mike," he cried. "Split me, but I don't believe you're so
sour after all, in spite of those straight looks. We'll be comrades,
eh, boy? and drown the ghosts in the flowing bowl. They'll need
drowning," he added, leaning against his son's broad shoulder and
speaking in a whisper. "That's why I didn't come before. Not that I
care for Sir Henry; he may frown an' curse at me till he rots, I'll but
drink the deeper. But the little mother is different; she looks sad,
and I see her crying over there by her tambour frame, and I know the
tears are for me. That's what I can't stand, Mike, d'you hear? It
makes me--there, there, I'm a drunken fool or yet not drunk enough,
'And that I think's a reason fair
To drink and fill again.'"
He flung back his head with a rollicking laugh over the refrain.
Ghosts there should not be at Berrington Manor.
"Let's to the Hall," he cried, with an oath. "There's good wine, good
company, and pretty faces there, if Phil Berkeley's to be believed. He
vows Morry's sister's a jewel fit for a king's crown. You'll be your
father's son where a pair of pretty eyes are to be toasted, eh, boy?
Ha! ha!"
But Michael did not reply, though his own eyes were grim for those of a
youth who went a-wooing.