RESTITUTION.
Shortly after Scrafton's departure, Gordon Lowndes also took his leave.
It was not, however, until he had offered Harry his hand with much
diffidence, and the younger man had grasped it without a moment's
hesitation. At this the other coloured and dropped his eyes, but stood
for some moments returning Harry's pressure twofold.
"Ringrose," he faltered, "I would give all I'm worth to-night to have
told the truth in the beginning. But how could I? I might as well have
blown my brains out. I--I tried to be your friend instead. I suppose
you'll never let me be your friend any more?"
It is doubtful whether any man could have said these words to Harry
Ringrose, in any conceivable circumstances, without receiving some such
response as that which instantly burst from his lips. Want of
generosity was not one of Harry's faults; yet he had no sooner forgiven
Lowndes, once and for all, and with a whole heart, than an inner voice
reminded him that he had but served self-interest in doing so; and the
reason, coming home to him like a bullet, gave a strange turn to his
emotions.
The father was sitting in a deep reverie in his wife's chair: his face
was in his hands: he neither saw nor heard. Harry looked at him,
hesitated, and in the end not only saw Lowndes to the door but
accompanied him downstairs in the first leaden light of the September
morning. He had something more to say.
He merely wanted to know whether Miss Lowndes was in town, and whether
he might call. Yet he only got it out as they were shaking hands for
the last time.
"You mean at Berkeley Square?" said Lowndes.
"Yes--if I may."
"You'll have to be quick about it, Ringrose. We leave there in a day or
two. The men are already in the house. Still, I've no doubt she'll be
glad to see you."
"Taking a country seat?" asked Harry, smiling.
"No, a suburban one: the sort of thing we had at Richmond, only rather
better."
"You don't mean it!"
"A fact."
"But the Crofters are paying such a dividend?"
Gordon Lowndes shrugged his shoulders with a gesture that reminded
Harry of former days.
"A paltry fourteen per cent.!" said he. "I'm sick of it. I thought we
should all be millionaires by this time. I've sold out, and, of course,
at a good enough figure; but we've been doing ourselves pretty well
these last few years, and I haven't got much change out of the Crofters
after all. In point of fact, it would take a few thousands to clear me;
but, on the other hand, the credit's better than ever it was, and I'm
simply chock-a-block with new plans. Loaded to the muzzle, Ringrose,
and just spoiling for the fray! I know my nature better than ever I
knew it before. I wasn't built for sitting in a chair and drawing my
salary and receiving my dividends. I've found that out. It's worrying
the thing through that I enjoy; there's some sport in that. However,
I'm as lively as an old cheese with schemes and ideas; and one of them,
at least, should appeal to you. It's a composite daily paper on
absolutely new lines--that is, on all existing lines run parallel for a
penny. My idea is to knock out the _Times_ and the _Guardian_ on one
hand, and _Punch_ and the _Pink 'Un_ on the other. What should you say
to coming in as comic editor at a four-figure screw?"
"Where's the capitalist?" was what Harry said.
"Where is he not?" cried Lowndes. "Every man Jack of them would jump at
it! I made such a success of the Crofters that I could raise a million
to-morrow for any crack-brained scheme I liked to put my name to. Yes,
my boy, I'll have my pick of the capitalists this time; have them
coming to me with their hats in one hand and their cheque-books in the
other; but, between ourselves, I don't think we shall have far to seek
for our man, Ringrose!"
"What do you mean?" cried Harry, his curiosity whetted by the other's
tone.
"Ask your father," was the reply. "I may be mistaken, and he mayn't
have made such a pile as I imagine; but he'll tell you as soon as he
has you to himself; and meanwhile I'll warn Fanny that you're going to
look her up."
A hansom tinkled and twinkled across the jaws of Earl's Court Road; and
as the light-hearted rapscallion darted off in pursuit, few would have
believed with what a deed he had been connected; fewer still with what
emotion he had lamented his wickedness not five minutes ago.
* * * * *
The father had not stirred, but he looked up as Harry burst in,
breathless and ashamed.
"What, have you been out?"
"Yes, father," with deep humility.
"And where is Lowndes?"
"I have been seeing him off."
"I never heard him go," said Mr. Ringrose, with a deep sigh. "The old
things about me--they carried me back into the past. One question,
Harry, and then you shall hear all you care to know. We found out from
the commissionaire that your mother is at Eastbourne. What is she doing
there?"
"I thought it would set her up for the winter."
"Is she not well?"
"Perfectly, father; but--she likes it, and--we were able to do it last
year."
"She is in lodgings, then, and alone?"
"Yes."
"When does the next train leave?"
"Eight-ten," said Harry, a minute later.
Mr. Ringrose had shaded his eyes once more. They shone like a young
man's as with a sudden gesture he whisked his hand away and snatched at
his watch.
"Only five hours more! Thank God--thank God--that I can look her in the
face to-day!"
* * * * *
"Do you remember how I taught you to swim when you were a tiny shrimp?
It was my one accomplishment in my own boyhood, my one love among
outdoor sports, and I sometimes think it must have been implanted in me
for the express purpose of saving my life when the time came. Certainly
nothing else could have saved it; and I cannot think that I was spared
by mere chance, Harry, but intentionally, for better things. Mine had
been an easy life up to that time; even in my difficulties it had been
an easy life. Well, it has not been easy since!
"He stunned me first--that's how it happened. He struck me a murderous
blow as I was leaving him to go in search of Lowndes. I knew no more
until I was in the water. Then, before my head was clear, my limbs were
doing their work. I was keeping myself afloat. I kept myself afloat
until close upon daylight, when a French fisherman picked me up. He
carried me to his cottage on the coast, and treated me from first to
last with a kindness which I hope still to reward. At the time I bought
his silence, with but little faith in his sticking to his bargain; now
I know how loyally he must have done so. When I left him it was to find
my way to Havre, and at Havre I took ship for Naples. I had still a
little paper-money which had not come to me from Lowndes, and which I
did not think likely to leave traces. With this money I transhipped at
Naples, after reading of my own mysterious disappearance from Dieppe.
Yes, that puzzled me; but I thought and thought, and hit at last upon
something not altogether unlike the actual explanation. No, I never
contemplated returning to unmask the villain who had attempted my
murder. I was beginning to feel almost grateful to him. It was to him I
owed such a fresh start as no ruined man ever had before.... Harry,
Harry, don't look like that! My ruin was complete in any case. How
could I come back and say I had been running away with the money, but
had thought better of it? I could have come back in the beginning, and
met my creditors without telling them what I had been tempted to do.
This was impossible now. It was too late to undo the immediate effects
of my disappearance; it was not too late to begin life afresh under
another name and in another land. Rightly or wrongly, that is what I
resolved to do--for my family's sake as much as for my own. They must
forgive me, or my heart will break!"
* * * * *
It was to Durban that the fugitive had taken ship at Naples. He had
landed on those shores within a month of the day on which his son had
quitted them. And the first man he met there was one who recognised him
on the spot. But good came of it; the man was an old friend, and proved
a true one; he was down from Johannesburg on business, and when he
returned Mr. Ringrose accompanied him. With this staunch friend the
ironmaster's secret was safe; and partly through him, and partly with
him--for within the year the pair were partners--the man who had lost a
fortune bit by bit in the old country had made another by leaps and
bounds in the new. Which was a sufficiently romantic story when Harry
came to hear it in detail at a later date. At the time it was but the
bare fact that the father cared to chronicle or the son to hear. It was
the result on which Mr. Ringrose preferred to dwell. That very day he
had returned with interest (before he knew that his wife had been
paying it all these years) the money those four old friends had lent
him through Gordon Lowndes. He had barely touched it, and would have
returned it long ago, only he did not want his wife and son to know
that he was alive until he could come back to them a rich enough man to
atone in some degree for the wrong that he had done them--for the
poverty and the shame they had endured for his sake.
Harry said that Lowndes had spoken as though his father was a
millionaire. Mr. Ringrose smiled slightly as he shook his head.
"That's entirely his own idea," said he. "There might have been some
truth in it in a few more years; but, as it is, it was no great pile I
set myself to make, and I am more than content in having made it. In
point of fact I am a poorer man than I was when you were born, but I am
a free man for the first time for many years. This very day I have paid
every penny that I owed here in town. A cheque is also on its way to
the old firm, with which they can settle to-morrow any outstanding
liabilities, and put the rest into the works in my name. And now I can
face your mother. I could not do it until I could tell her this."
Yet he had not been a dozen hours in England; the cheques had been
written on board, and posted the moment he landed. On reaching London
he had gone straight to Gordon Lowndes, and it was only the almost
simultaneous arrival of Scrafton which had kept him so long from
seeking his own. Scrafton, who had latterly taken to pestering his
victim almost daily, had ultimately left him (to the delight of
Lowndes) with the avowed intention of carrying out his old threat and
going straight to Harry Ringrose. In what followed Harry's father had
once more yielded, against his better judgment, to Gordon Lowndes.
"It was his frankness that did it," said Mr. Ringrose; "he told me
everything, before he need have told me anything at all, in his sheer
joy at seeing me alive. He told me everything that he has since told
you, and upon my word I am not sure that you or I would have acted very
differently in his place. It was while we were talking that Scrafton
called, and I learned for myself how Lowndes had suffered at his hands.
I could not refuse to give him his revenge, though I should have vastly
preferred to give it him there. Scrafton had gone, however, and Lowndes
seemed almost equally anxious that you should judge between them, as it
were, on their merits. So he had his way ... I am glad you have made it
up with him, Harry. He is a strange mixture of good and bad, but which
of us is not? And which of us does not need forgiveness from the other?
I--most of all--need it from you!"
"And I from you," said Harry in a low voice.
"You? Why?"
"Four years ago I suspected foul play. I was sure of it. Some other
time I will tell you why."
"I rather think Lowndes has told me already. Well?"
"I held my tongue! I found out most on the promise of not trying to
find out any more. I shall never forgive myself for making that
promise--and keeping it."
"Nay; thank God you did that!"
"You don't know what I mean."
"I think I do."
"Every day I have felt a traitor to you!"
"I think there has been a little morbid exaggeration," said Mr.
Ringrose, with his worn smile. "What good could you have done? And to
whom did you make this promise?"
Harry told him with a red face.
* * * * *
The night was at an end. Milk-carts clattered in the streets; milkmen
clattered on the stairs. Harry put out the single light that had been
burning all night in the sober front of the many-windowed mansions; and
in the early morning he took his father over the flat. The rooms had
never seemed so few--so tiny. Mr. Ringrose made no remark until he was
back in the only good one that the flat contained.
"And your mother has made shift here all these years!" he exclaimed
then, and the remorse in his voice had never sounded so acute.
"Oh, no; we have only been here a year."
"Where were you before?"
"In a smaller flat downstairs."
"A smaller one than this? God forgive me! I was not prepared for much;
but from what I read I did expect more than this!"
"From what you read?" cried Harry. "Read where?"
A new light shone in the father's face. "In some paragraphs I once
stumbled across in some paper--I have them in my pocket at this
moment!" said he. "Did you suppose I never saw your name in the papers,
Harry? It has been my one link with you both. I saw it first by
accident, and ever since I have searched for it, and sent for
everything I could hear of that had your name to it. So I have always
had good news of you; and sometimes between the lines I have thought I
read good news of your mother too. God bless you ... God bless you ...
for working for her ... and taking my place."
* * * * *
The old servant wept over her old master as though her heart would
break with gladness. Her breakfast was a sorry thing, but no sooner was
it on the table than she was sent down for a hansom, and she was still
whistling when the gentlemen rushed after her and flew to find one for
themselves. It was ten minutes to eight, and their train left Victoria
at ten minutes past.
Mrs. Ringrose was reading quietly in her room--reading some proof-sheets
which Harry had posted to her the day before--when she heard the bell
ring and her boy's own step upon the stairs. "You have news!" she cried
as he entered; then at his face--"He has come back!"
"Mother, did you expect it?"
"I have expected it every morning of all these years. I have prayed for
it every night."
"Your prayer is answered!"
"Where is he?"
"I left him in the cab----"
"But he could not wait!" cried a broken voice; and as Harry stood aside
to let his father pass, he could see nothing through his own tears, but
he never forgot the next words he heard.
"I have paid them all--all--all!" his father cried. "I can look the
world in the face once more!"
"I care nothing about that," his mother answered. "You have come back
to me. Oh! you have come back!"