THE CONFESSION.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Mr. Fuller turned to Tom,
saying, as he took a chair near him, "I'm very glad to see you, Mr.
Worboise. I have long wanted to have a little talk with you."
"Will you tell me," said Tom, with considerable uneasiness,
notwithstanding the pacific appearance of everything about him, "why
those people have made me come to you? I was afraid of making a row in
the street, and so I thought it better to give in. But I have not an
idea why I am here."
Mr. Fuller thought there must be some farther reason, else a young man
of Thomas's appearance would not have so quietly yielded to the will of
two men like Kitely and Spelt. But he kept this conclusion to himself.
"It certainly was a most unwarrantable proceeding if they used any
compulsion. But I have no intention of using any--nor should I have
much chance," he added, laughing, "if it came to a tussle with a young
fellow like you, Mr. Worboise."
This answer restored Tom to his equanimity a little.
"Perhaps you know my father," he said, finding that Mr. Fuller was
silent. In fact, Mr. Fuller was quite puzzled how to proceed. He cared
little for the business part, and for the other, he must not compromise
Lucy. Clearly the lawyer-business was the only beginning. Ana this
question of Tom's helped him to it.
"I have not the pleasure of knowing your father. I wish I had. But,
after all, it is better I should have a chat with you first."
"Most willingly," said Tom, with courtesy.
"It is a very unconventional thing I am about to do. But very likely
you will give me such information as will enable me to set the minds
of some of my friends at rest. I am perfectly aware what a lame
introduction this is, and I must make a foolish figure indeed, except
you will kindly understand that sometimes a clergyman is compelled to
meddle with matters which he would gladly leave alone."
"I have too much need of forbearance myself not to grant it,
sir--although I do not believe any will be necessary in your case. Pray
make me understand you."
Mr. Fuller was greatly pleased with this answer, and proceeded to
business at once.
"I am told by a man who is greatly interested in one of the parties
concerned, that a certain near relative of yours is in possession of
a large property which ought by right, if not by law, to belong to an
old lady who is otherwise destitute. I wish to employ your mediation to
procure a settlement upon her of such small portion of the property at
least as will make her independent. I am certainly explicit enough,
now," concluded Mr. Fuller, with a considerable feeling of relief in
having discharged himself, if not of his duty, yet of so creditable a
beginning of it.
"I am as much in the dark as ever, sir," returned Thomas. "I know
nothing of what you refer to. If you mean my father, I am the last one
to know anything of his affairs. I have not seen him or heard of him
for months."
"But you cannot surely be ignorant of the case. It has been reported in
the public prints from time to time. It seems that your father has come
in for the contingent reversion--I think that is the phrase, I'm not
sure--of all the property of the late Richard Boxall--"
"By Jove!" cried Thomas, starting to his feet in a rage, then sinking
back on his chair in conscious helplessness. "He did make his will," he
muttered.
"Leaving," Mr. Fuller went on, "the testator's mother and his niece
utterly unprovided for."
"But she had money of her own in the business. I have heard her say so
a thousand times."
"She has nothing now."
"My father is a villain!" cried Thomas, starting once more to his feet,
and pacing up and down in the little vestry like a wild beast in a
cage. "And what am _I_?" he added, after a pause. "I have brought all
this upon her." He could say no more. He sat down, hid his face in his
hands, and sobbed.
Thomas was so far mistaken in this, that his father, after things had
gone so far as they had, would have done as he had done, whatever had
been Thomas's relations to the lady. But certainly, if he had behaved
as he ought, things could not have gone thus far. He was the cause of
all the trouble.
Nothing could have been more to Mr. Fuller's mind.
"As to Miss Burton," he said, "I happen to know that she has another
grief, much too great to allow her to think about money. A clergyman,
you know, comes to hear of many things. She never told me who he was,"
said Mr. Fuller, with hesitation; "but she confessed to me that she was
in great trouble."
"Oh, sir, what _shall_ I do?" cried Thomas; "I love her with all my
heart, but I can never, never dare to think of her more. I came up to
London at the risk of--of--I came up to London only to see her and give
her back this ring, and beg her to forgive me, and go away forever. And
now I have not only given her pain--"
"Pain!" said Mr. Puller. "If she weren't so good, her heart would have
broken before now."
Thomas burst out sobbing again. He turned his face away from Mr. Puller
and stood by the wall, shaken with misery. Mr. Puller left him alone
for a minute or two. Then, going up to him, he put his hand on his
shoulder, kindly, and said:
"My dear boy, I suspect you have got into some terrible scrape, or you
would not have disappeared as they tell me. And your behavior seems to
confirm the suspicion. Tell me all about it, and I have very little
doubt that I can help you out of it. But you must tell me _everything_."
"I will, sir; I will," Tom sobbed.
"Mind, no half-confessions. I have no right to ask you to confess but
on the ground of helping you. But if I am to help you, I must know all.
Can I trust you that you will be quite straightforward and make a clean
breast of it?"
Tom turned round, and looked Mr. Fuller calmly in the face. The light
of hope shone in his eyes: the very offer of hearing all his sin and
misery gave him hope. To tell it, would be to get rid of some of the
wretchedness.
"I hate myself so, sir," he said, "that I do not feel it worth while to
hide anything. I will speak the truth. When you wish to know more than
I tell, ask me any questions you please, and I will answer them."
At this moment a tap was heard at the vestry door, and it opened,
revealing two strange figures with scared, interrogating faces on the
top--the burly form of Captain Smith, and the almost as bulky, though
differently arranged, form of Mr. Potts.
"Don't'ee be too hard on the young gentleman, sir," said Mr. Potts,
in the soothing tone of one who would patch up a family quarrel. "He
won't do it again, I'll go bail. You don't know, sir, what a good sort
he is. Don't'ee get him into no trouble. He lost his life--all but--a
reskewing of my Bessie. He did now. True as the Bible, sir," added Mr.
Potts, with conciliatory flattery to the clergyman's profession, whom
they both took for the father or uncle of Thomas.
"You just let me take him off again, sir," put in Captain Smith, while
the face of Mr. Potts, having recovered its usual complexion, looked on
approvingly like a comic but benevolent moon.
Mr. Fuller had a wise way of never interrupting till he saw in what
direction the sense lay. So he let them talk, and the seaman went on:
"Everybody knows the sea's the place for curing the likes o' them fine
fellows that carries too much sail ashore. They soon learns their
reef-points there. Why, parson, sir, he's been but three or four
voyages, and I'll take him for an able-bodied seaman to-morrow. He's a
right good sort, though he may ha' been a little frolicsome on shore.
We was all young once, sir."
"Are these men friends of yours, Mr. Worboise?" asked Mr. Fuller.
"Indeed they are," answered Thomas. "I think I must have killed myself
before now, if it hadn't been for those two."
So saying, he shook hands with Mr. Potts, and, turning to the captain,
said:
"Thank you, thank you, captain, but I am quite safe with this
gentleman. I will come and see you to-morrow."
"He shall sleep at my house to-night," said Mr. Fuller; "and no harm
shall happen to him, I promise you."
"Thank you, sir;" and "Good-night, gentlemen," said both, and went
through the silent, wide church with a kind of awe that rarely visited
either of them.
Without further preface than just the words, "Now, I will tell you all
about it, sir," Thomas began his story. When he had finished it, having
answered the few questions he put to him in its course, Mr. Fuller was
satisfied that he did know all about it, and that if ever there was a
case in which he ought to give all the help he could, here was one. He
did not utter a word of reproof. Thomas's condition of mind was such
that it was not only unnecessary, but might have done harm. He had now
only to be met with the same simplicity which he had himself shown. The
help must match the confession.
"Well, we must get you out of this scrape, somehow," he said, heartily.
"I don't see how you can, sir."
"It rests with yourself chiefly. Another can only help. The feet that
walked into the mire must turn and walk out of it again. I don't mean
to reproach you--only to encourage you to effort."
"What effort?" said Tom. "I have scarcely heart for anything. I have
disgraced myself forever. Suppose all the consequences of my--doing as
I did"--he could not yet call the deed by its name--"were to disappear,
I have a blot upon me to all eternity, that nothing can wash out. For
there is the fact. I almost think it is not worth while to do anything."
"You are altogether wrong about that," returned Mr. Fuller. "It is
true that the deed is done, and that that cannot be obliterated. But a
living soul may outgrow all stain and all reproach--I do not mean in
the judgment of men merely, but in the judgment of God, which is always
founded on the actual fact, and always calls things by their right
names, and covers no man's sin, although he forgives it and takes it
away. A man may abjure his sin so, cast it away from him so utterly,
with pure heart and full intent, that, although he did it, it is his no
longer. But, Thomas Worboise, if the stain of it were to cleave to you
to all eternity, that would be infinitely better than that you should
have continued capable of doing the thing. You are more honorable
now than you were before. Then you were capable of the crime; now, I
trust, you are not. It was far better that, seeing your character was
such that you could do it, you should thus be humbled by disgracing
yourself, than that you should have gone on holding up a proud head in
the world, with such a deceitful hollow of weakness in your heart. It
is the kindest thing God can do for his children, sometimes, to let
them fall in the mire. You would not hold by your Father's hand; you
struggled to pull it away; he let it go, and there you lay. Now that
you stretch forth the hand to him again, he will take you, and clean,
not your garments only, but your heart, and soul, and consciousness.
Pray to your Father, my boy. He will change your humiliation into
humility, your shame into purity."
"Oh, if he were called anything else than _Father_! I am afraid I hate
my father."
"I don't wonder. But that is your own fault, too."
"How is that, sir? Surely you are making even me out worse than I am."
"No. You are afraid of him. As soon as you have ceased to be afraid of
him, you will no longer be in danger of hating him."
"I can't help being afraid of him."
"You must break the bonds of that slavery. No slave can be God's
servant. His servants are all free men. But we will come to that
presently. You must not try to call God your Father, till _father_
means something very different to you from what it seems to mean now.
Think of the grandest human being you can imagine--the tenderest, the
most gracious whose severity is boundless, but hurts himself most--all
against, evil, all for the evil-doer. God is all that and infinitely
more. You need not call him by any name till the name bursts from
your heart. God our Saviour means all the names in the world, and
infinitely more! One thing I can assure you of, that even I, if you
will but do your duty in regard to this thing, will not only love--yes,
I will say that word--will not only love, but honor you far more than
if I had known you only as a respectable youth. It is harder to turn
back than to keep at home. I doubt if there could be such joy in heaven
over the repenting sinner if he was never to be free of his disgrace.
But I like you the better for having the feeling of eternal disgrace
now."
"I will think God is like you, sir. Tell me what I am to do."
"I am going to set you the hardest of tasks, one after the other. They
will be like the pinch of death. But they _must_ be done. And after
that--peace. Who is at the head of the late Mr. Boxall's business now?"
"I suppose Mr. Stopper. He was head-clerk."
"You must go to him and take him the money you stole."
Thomas turned ashy pale.
"I haven't got it, sir."
"How much was it, did you say?"
"Eleven pounds--nearly twelve."
"I will find you the money. I will lend it to you."
"Thank you, thank you, sir. I will not spend a penny I can help till I
repay you. But--"
"Yes, now come the _buts_," said Mr. Fuller, with a smile of kindness.
"What is the first _but_?"
"Stopper is a hard man, and never liked me. He will give me up to the
law."
"I can't help it. It must be done. But I do not believe he will do
that. I will help you so far as to promise you to do all that lies in
my power in every way to prevent it. And there is your father; his word
will be law with him now."
"So much the worse, sir. He is ten times as hard as Stopper."
"He will not be willing to disgrace his own family, though."
"I know what he will do. He will make it a condition that I shall give
up Lucy. But I will go to prison before I will do that. Not that it
will make any difference in the end, for Lucy won't have a word to say
to me now. She bore all that woman could bear. But she shall give me
up--she has given me up, of course; but I will never give her up that
way."
"That's right, my boy. Well, what do you say to it?"
Tom was struggling with himself. With a sudden resolve, the source of
which he could not tell, he said, "I will, sir." With a new light in
his face he added, "What next?"
"Then you must go to your father."
"That is far worse. I am afraid I can't."
"You must--if you should not find a word to say when you go--if you
should fall in a faint on the floor when you try."
"I will, sir. Am I to tell him everything?"
"I am not prepared to say that. If he had been a true father to you,
I should have said 'Of course.' But there is no denying the fact that
such he has not been, or rather, that such he is not. The point lies
there. I think that alters the affair. It is one thing to confess to
God and another to the devil. Excuse me, I only put the extremes."
"What ought I to tell him, then?"
"I think you will know that best when you see him. We cannot tell how
much he knows."
"Yes," said Thomas, thoughtfully; "I will tell him that I am sorry I
went away as I did, and ask him to forgive me. Will that do?"
"I must leave all that to your own conscience, heart, and honesty. Of
course, if he receives you at all, you must try what you can do for
Mrs. Boxall."
"Alas! I know too well how useless that will be. It will only enrage
him the more at them. He may offer to put it all right, though, if I
promise to give Lucy up. _Must_ I do that, sir?"
Knowing more about Lucy's feelings than Thomas, Mr. Fuller answered at
once--though if he had hesitated, he might have discovered ground for
hesitating--
"On no account whatever."
"And what must I do next?" he asked, more cheerfully.
"There's your mother."
"Ah! you needn't remind me of her."
"Then you must not forget Miss Burton. You have some apology to make to
her too, I suppose."
"I had just sent her a note, asking her to meet me once more, and was
waiting for her answer, when the bookseller laid hold of me. I was so
afraid of making a row, lest the police should come, that I gave in to
him. I owe him more than ever I can repay."
"You will when you have done all you have undertaken."
"But how am I to see Lucy now? She will not know where I am. But
perhaps she will not want to see me."
Here Tom looked very miserable again. Anxious to give him courage, Mr.
Fuller said:
"Come home with me now. In the morning, after you have seen Mr.
Stopper, and your father and mother, come back to my house. I am sure
she will see you."
With more thanks in his heart than on his tongue, Tom followed Mr.
Fuller from the church. When they stepped into the street, they found
the bookseller, the seaman, and the publican, talking together on the
pavement.
"It's all right," said Mr. Fuller, as he passed them. "Good-night."
Then, turning again to Mr. Kitely, he added, in a low voice, "He knows
nothing of his father's behavior, Kitely. You'll be glad to hear that."
"I ought to be glad to hear it for his own sake, I suppose," returned
the bookseller. "But I don't know as I am, for all that."
"Have patience, have patience," said the parson, and walked on, taking
Thomas by the arm.
For the rest of the evening Mr. Fuller avoided much talk with the
penitent, and sent him to bed early.