Every circumstance connected with the coming race meeting disgusted
Bulstrode more and more. One night, sitting over the walnuts and the
wine in the dining-room at Deerchase with Skelton and Lewis, Bulstrode
gave vent to his dissatisfaction. He did not always dine with Skelton,
and, indeed, when Bob Skinny’s emissary came to his door to say that
dinner was served, Bulstrode would generally answer: “Oh, hang dinner!
I had a chop in the middle of the day, and I’ll be shot if I’ll sit for
two hours with Skelton over a lot of French kickshaws, with him looking
superciliously at me every time I touch the decanter.” Bob Skinny
would translate this message as follows: “Mr. Bulstrode, he present he
compliments, sah, an’ he say, ef you will have de circumlocution to
excuse him, he done had he dinner.”
Lewis, though, always dined with Skelton and enjoyed it. Skelton was
at his best at dinner, and would sometimes exert himself to please
the boy, whose tastes were singularly like his own. Lewis liked the
exquisitely appointed table, the sight of the flowers upon it, the
subtile air of luxury pervading the whole. He liked to lie back in his
chair, making his one small glass of sherry last as long as he could,
looking out upon the black clumps of the shrubbery that loomed large
in the purple twilight, listening to the soft, melodious ripple of the
broad river, and to Skelton’s musical voice as he talked. It always
vexed him when Miles Lightfoot was of the party, who was, however,
under a good deal of restraint in Skelton’s presence.
On this particular evening, though, Bulstrode was dining with Skelton
and Lewis. The room was dim, for all the wax candles in the world
could not light it brilliantly, and it was odorous with the scent of
the blossoms of a dogwood tree that bloomed outside, and even thrust
their bold, pretty faces almost through the window. But Bulstrode was
undeniably cross, and uncomfortably attentive to the decanters.
“And how did Jaybird do to-day, Lewis?” asked Skelton; but before Lewis
could answer, Bulstrode burst out:
“Jaybird go to perdition! Every time I think of him I remember that if
the horse wins that race, Blair will be a ruined man. That is, he is
more than half ruined already, but that will finish him.”
“I shall be sorry, but I can’t see how anybody but Blair can be held
responsible,” answered Skelton calmly. “If a man who can’t afford it
_will_ follow horse racing, and if he _will_ put up a scrub against
a thoroughbred, why, there’s no stopping him; that man has an inbred
folly that must bring him to ruin some time or other. I don’t think
this race, or any race especially, will effect the result. Blair has a
passion for gambling on the turf, and that will ruin any man.”
Lewis listened to this with a troubled face. Skelton’s eyes saw it,
and he felt angry with Bulstrode for putting such things into the
boy’s head. And besides, Lewis was only fifteen, and suppose his
feelings should be worked upon to the extent that he should be guilty
of the enormity of “pulling” the race? Skelton hastened to change the
conversation.
The dinner was shorter than usual that night, and Lewis had to gulp
down the last half of his glass of wine rather hurriedly. Skelton went
off as usual to a corner of the square stone porch and smoked steadily.
To his surprise, Bulstrode followed him and sat down on a bench. After
a while Bulstrode began, argumentatively:
“I don’t see why you want to drive Blair to the wall.”
Skelton took his cigar from his lips, and was silent with astonishment.
Bulstrode never presumed to force himself into Skelton’s private
affairs that way.
“And,” continued Bulstrode, with his rich, beautiful voice full of
tears, “he has that sweet and charming wife. Good God! Skelton, you
must have a heart of stone!”
Skelton’s impulse was to pick up a chair and brain Bulstrode on the
spot, but instead, he only said coldly:
“You have been drinking, Bulstrode. You can’t let a decanter pass you.”
“Yes, I’ve been drinking,” cried Bulstrode, with a frank laugh; “but
you know yourself I’m a much better and braver man drunk than sober.
When I’m sober I’m cowed by that devilish cool gentlemanliness of
yours; but when I’ve had a bottle of port I’m as good a man as you,
Skelton; and I see that you will never be happy until you have made
Blair the wretchedest man alive. Come, now. You’ve got lashings of
money. Blair is as poor as a church mouse. You have got everything on
earth.”
Skelton had risen during this, and could scarcely keep his hands off
Bulstrode where he sat; but it was grotesque enough that he could not
make Bulstrode hold his tongue. He could only say between his teeth:
“Drunken dog!”
Bulstrode rose too at that, with a kind of dogged courage. “I am a
drunken dog, I am!” he said; “but I am Wat Bulstrode, too; don’t forget
that. Don’t forget that I know a great deal more out of books than you
do. Don’t forget that you could hardly get another man who could fill
my place. Don’t forget that I am more to you than all those thousands
of volumes you’ve got in yonder. Don’t forget that I am Lewis Pryor’s
guardian until he is one and twenty. You may regret that fact, but you
can’t alter it. And, more than all--let me tell you--_I_ know all the
very curious provisions of your wife’s will. You never condescended
to ask me to keep silence, and I made you no promise. Drunken dog,
indeed! And I could tell that which would turn this county bottom
upwards! Suppose I were to tell Mrs. Blair to make herself easy; that
those fools of lawyers made it so that one day, whether you die or
marry, everything that was your wife’s goes to your heirs--and she is
your heir, because you’ve got no other relations. And Lewis Pryor--ah,
Skelton, how many clever men overreach themselves! I know, too, that
so bunglingly did these legal fools their work, that if you could prove
that you had a son at the time of your wife’s death, he would get the
fortune. That fate was so desperately at work against common sense,
that they forgot to put in whether he should be entitled to your name
or not. But so cleverly have you made it appear that Lewis Pryor is the
son of that lanky, sandy-haired tutor, that maybe you would have a hard
time unravelling your own web. And so you think me a drunken dog, hey?
All this I tell you is as clear as a bell in my--drunken mind, as you
would call it.”
Skelton’s face had turned blue with rage while Bulstrode was speaking;
but there was no way to make him stop, except pounding him with the
chair. And then, Skelton wanted to find out how much Bulstrode really
knew. Yes, he knew it all. Well might Skelton hate Blair and pursue his
ruin. Either the Blairs must happen, by the most fortuitous accident,
to fall into a great fortune at his death, or else the stigma that he
had so carefully removed, as far as the world knew, from Lewis must
be published in two countries. Fury and dismay kept him silent, but
Bulstrode actually quailed under his eye when once Skelton had fixed it
on him. Skelton spoke after a little pause:
“Your knowledge is entirely correct; and more, you are at liberty to
proclaim it to the world any day you feel like it. The extraordinary
part of it is that some wretch, as loose of tongue as you, has not
by this time done so. It is a wonder that some creature, inspired
by gratuitous ill-will towards that innocent boy, has not already
published his shame. But the world, that is so forgiving and gentle
to me, is already arrayed against him. The people in this county, for
example, who seek the society of the owner of Deerchase, have condemned
the innocent boy merely upon suspicion. It was so before I brought him
here. No man or woman looked askant at me, but they put _him_ beyond
the pale. Bah! what a world it is!”
Bulstrode’s courage and swagger had abated all the time Skelton had
been speaking. It never could stand up against Skelton’s coolness and
determination. But some impulse of tenderness towards Lewis made him
say:
“You need not fear for one moment that I would harm the boy. I too love
him. Unlike the world, I hold him to be innocent and you to be guilty.”
“Pshaw!” answered Skelton contemptuously, “you will not do him any harm
until your heedless tongue begins to wag, when, in pure idleness and
wantonness, you will tell all you know. However, the fact that you are
about the only person in the world who takes a true view of the case,
saves me from kicking you out of doors. You must see for yourself I
love that boy with the strongest, strangest affection. It has been my
punishment, to suffer acutely at all the contumely heaped upon him; to
yearn for the only thing I can’t give him--an equality with his kind;
to feel like the cut of a knife every slight, every covert indignity
put upon him. I tell you, had Blair and his wife done the simplest
kind thing for that boy, I believe it would have disarmed me. But, no;
they have flouted him studiously. Blair has never heard Lewis’s name
mentioned before me without a look that made me want to have him by
the throat; and in return, he shall be a beggar.” Skelton said this
with perfect coolness, but it made a cold chill run down Bulstrode’s
backbone. “The least kindness, the smallest gentleness, shown that
boy is eternally remembered by me, and I have too little, too little
to remember. And shall I overlook the insolence of the Blairs towards
him? Ah, no. That is not like me. The strongest hold you have over me,
Bulstrode, is because I know you love that boy, and it would distress
him to part with you. But I think I have had as much of your company as
I care for just now, so go.”
Bulstrode went immediately.
Skelton sat on the porch, or walked about it, far into the night, until
his rage had cooled off. He had been subject to those tempests of still
and almost silent passion all his life, and a fit of it invariably
left him profoundly sad. The injustice to Lewis was inexpressibly
hard to bear. He had all his life enjoyed so much power, prestige,
and distinction, that the slightest contradiction was infinitely
galling to him. One thing he had fully determined: the Blairs should
not get that money. Rather would he proclaim Lewis’s birth to the
world. But with a thrill of pride, as well as pain, he realised that
it would cruelly distress the boy. Skelton knew Lewis’s disposition
perfectly, and he knew the pride, the delicacy, the self-respect, that
were already visible and would grow with the boy’s growth. He felt
convinced that Lewis would never willingly barter what he supposed to
be his respectable parentage for all the money in the world. And what
would be the boy’s feelings towards _him_? Would not Lewis bear him a
life-long hatred? And that suggestion which Bulstrode had thrown out
about the difficulty of unravelling the story of Lewis’s birth, which
Skelton had constructed with so much ingenuity, yes--it must be done in
his lifetime; he would not trust anything to chance. The game was up,
as far as the Blairs were concerned. And then he might, if he chose,
marry Sylvia Shapleigh. She would perhaps awake his tired heart, for
he had gone through with some experiences that had left weariness and
cynical disgust behind them. But that the Blairs should ever have what
might be Lewis’s, that they should profit by those fools of lawyers in
England--Skelton almost swore aloud at the bare idea.
He revolved these things in his mind as he sat perfectly still in the
corner of the porch after his restlessness had departed.
The moon rose late, but the round silver disc had grown bright before
he stirred. He waked Bob Skinny, sleeping soundly on the back porch,
to shut up the house, and went upstairs to his own rooms. As he passed
through the upper hall he saw, to his surprise, Lewis Pryor sitting in
the deep window seat, upon which the moonlight streamed.
“You here?” asked Skelton, surprised, yet in his usual kindly voice.
“Yes,” answered Lewis, perfectly wide awake, and looking somberly at
Skelton in the ghostly light. “I couldn’t sleep for thinking of Mrs.
Blair. I must win that race, and yet, if I do she will be unhappy, and
that makes me unhappy. I wish we had never thought about the race, Mr.
Skelton.”
“Perhaps so,” said Skelton lightly; “but remember, when you are riding
a race you are representing a great many persons. If you win the race,
Mr. Blair will have lost some money; and if Hilary Blair wins, a great
many persons who have backed you will lose money. It is the most
dishonourable thing on earth to willfully lose a race.”
Lewis sighed, and understood very well.
“Come,” said Skelton good-naturedly, “it is time for youngsters like
you to be in bed. It is nearly one o’clock.”
Lewis crept off quite dolefully to his bed, while Skelton, sad at
heart, remained standing before the open window, gazing at the
glittering moon that silvered the lovely, peaceful, and tender
landscape.