THE MEETING AT THE RAILWAY STATION.
When the hands of the little clock in Margaret's sitting-room pointed
to five minutes before three, James Wentworth rose from his lounging
attitude in the easy-chair, and took his hat from a side-table.
"Are you going out, father?" the girl asked.
"Yes, Madge; I'm going up to London. It don't do for me to sit still
too long. Bad thoughts come fast enough at any time; but they come
fastest when a fellow sits twirling his thumbs. Don't look so
frightened, Madge; I'm not going to do any harm. I'm only going to look
about me. I may fall in with a bit of luck, perhaps; no matter what, if
it puts a few shillings into my pocket."
"I'd rather you stayed at home, father dear," Margaret said, gently.
"I dare say you would, child. But I tell you, I can't. I _can't_ sit
quiet this afternoon. I've been talking of things that always seem to
set my brain on fire. No harm shall come of my going away, girl; I
promise you that. The worst I shall do is to sit in a tavern parlour,
drink a glass of gin-and-water, and read the papers. There's no crime
in that, is there, Madge?"
His daughter smiled as she tried to arrange the shabby velvet collar of
his threadbare coat.
"No, father dear," she said; "and I'm sure I always wish you to enjoy
yourself. But you'll come home soon, won't you?"
"What do you call 'soon,' my lass?"
"Before ten o'clock. My day's work will be all over long before that,
and I'll try and get something nice for your supper."
"Very well, then, I'll be back by ten o'clock to-night. There's my hand
upon it."
He gave Margaret his hand, kissed her smooth cheeks, took his cane from
a corner of the room, and then went out.
His daughter watched him from the open window as he walked up the
narrow lane, amongst the groups of children gathered every here and
there upon the dusty pathway.
"Heaven have pity upon him, and keep him from sin!" murmured Margaret
Wentworth, clasping her hands, and with her eyes still following the
retreating figure.
James Wentworth jingled the money in his waistcoat-pocket as he walked
towards the railway station. He had very little; a couple of sixpences
and a few halfpence. Just about enough to pay for a second-class return
ticket, and for his glass of gin-and-water at a London tavern.
He reached the station three minutes before the train was due, and took
his ticket.
At half-past three he was in London.
But as he was an idle, purposeless man, without friends to visit or
money to spend, he was in no hurry to leave the railway station.
He hated solitude or quiet; and here in this crowded terminus there was
life and bustle and variety enough in all conscience; and all to be
seen for nothing: so he strolled backwards and forwards upon the
platform, watching the busy porters, the eager passengers rushing to
and fro, and meditating as to where he should spend the rest of his
afternoon.
By-and-by he stood against a wooden pillar in a doorway, looking at the
cabs, as, one after another, they tore up to the station, and disgorged
their loads.
He had witnessed the arrival of a great many different travellers, when
his attention was suddenly arrested by a little old man, wan and wizen
and near-sighted, feeble-looking, but active, who alighted from a cab,
and gave his small black-leather portmanteau into the hands of a
porter.
This man was Sampson Wilmot, the old confidential clerk in the house of
Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby.
James Wentworth followed the old man and the porter.
"I wonder if it _is_ he," he muttered to himself; "there's a
likeness—there's certainly a likeness. But it's so many years ago—so
many years—I don't suppose I should know him. And yet this man recalls
him to me somehow. I'll keep my eye upon the old fellow, at any rate."
Sampson Wilmot had arrived at the station about ten minutes before the
starting of the train. He asked some questions of the porter, and left
his portmanteau in the man's care while he went to get his ticket.
James Wentworth lingered behind, and contrived to look at the
portmanteau.
There was a label pasted on the lid, with an address, written in a
business-like hand—
"MR. SAMPSON WILMOT,
PASSENGER TO SOUTHAMPTON."
James Wentworth gave a long whistle.
"I thought as much," he muttered; "I thought I couldn't be mistaken!"
He went into the ticket-office, where the clerk was standing amongst
the crowd, waiting to take his ticket.
James Wentworth went up close to him, and touched him lightly on the
shoulder.
Sampson Wilmot turned and looked him full in the face. He looked, but
there was no ray of recognition in that look.
"Do you want me, sir?" he asked, with rather a suspicious glance at the
reprobate's shabby dress.
"Yes, Mr. Wilmot, I want to speak to you. You can come into the
waiting-room with me, after you've taken your ticket."
The clerk stared aghast. The tone of this shabby-looking stranger was
almost one of command.
"I don't know you, my good sir," stammered Sampson; "I never set eyes
upon you before; and unless you are a messenger sent after me from the
office, you must be under a mistake. You are a stranger to me!"
"I am no stranger, and I am no messenger!" answered the other. "You've
got your ticket? That's all right! Now you can come with me."
He walked into a waiting-room, the half-glass doors of which opened out
of the office. The room was empty, for it only wanted five minutes to
the starting of the train, and the passengers had hurried off to take
their seats.
James Wentworth took off his hat, and brushed his rumpled grey hair
from his forehead.
"Put on your spectacles, Sampson Wilmot," he said, "and look hard at
me, and then tell me if I am a stranger to you."
The old clerk obeyed, nervously, fearfully. His tremulous hands could
scarcely adjust his spectacles.
He looked at the reprobate's face for some moments and said nothing.
But his breath came quicker and his face grew very pale.
"Ay," said James Wentworth, "look your hardest, and deny me if you can.
It will be only wise to deny me; I'm no credit to any one—least of all
to a steady respectable old chap like you!"
"Joseph!—Joseph!" gasped the old clerk; "is it you? Is it really my
wretched brother? I thought you were dead, Joseph—I thought you were
dead and gone!"
"And wished it, I dare say!" the other answered, bitterly. "No,
Joseph,—no!" cried Sampson Wilmot; "Heaven knows I never wished you
ill. Heaven knows I was always sorry for you, and could make excuses
for you even when you sank lowest!"
"That's strange!" Joseph muttered, with a sneer; "that's very strange!
If you were so precious fond of me, how was it that you stopped in the
house of Dunbar and Dunbar? If you had had one spark of natural
affection for me, you could never have eaten their bread!"
Sampson Wilmot shook his head sorrowfully.
"Don't be too hard upon me, Joseph," he said, with mild
reproachfulness; "if I hadn't stopped at the banking-house your mother
might have starved!"
The reprobate made no answer to this; but he turned his face away and
sighed.
The bell rang for the starting of the train.
"I must go," Sampson cried. "Give me your address, Joseph, and I will
write to you."
"Oh, yes, I dare say!" answered his brother, scornfully; "no, no,
_that_ won't do. I've found you, my rich respectable brother, and I'll
stick to you. Where are you going?"
"To Southampton."
"What for?"
"To meet Henry Dunbar."
Joseph Wilmot's face grew livid with rage.
The change that came over it was so sudden and so awful in its nature,
that the old clerk started back as if he had seen a ghost.
"You are going to meet _him_?" said Joseph, in a hoarse whisper; "he is
in England, then?"
"No; but he is expected to arrive almost immediately. Why do you look
like that, Joseph?"
"Why do I look like that?" cried the younger man; "have you grown to be
such a mere machine, such a speaking automaton, such a living tool of
the men you serve, that all human feeling has perished in your breast?
Bah! how should such as you understand what I feel? Hark! the bell's
ringing—I'll come with you."
The train was on the point of starting: the two men hurried out to the
platform.
"No,—no," cried Sampson Wilmot, as his brother stepped after him into
the carriage; "no,—no, Joseph, don't come with me,—don't come with me!"
"I will go with you."
"But you've no ticket."
"I can get one—or you can get me one, for I've no money—at the first
station we stop at."
They were seated in a second-class railway carriage by this time. The
ticket-collector, running from carriage to carriage, was in too great a
hurry to discover that the little bit of pasteboard which Joseph Wilmot
exhibited was only a return-ticket to Wandsworth. There was a brief
scramble, a banging of doors, and Babel-like confusion of tongues; and
then the engine gave its farewell shriek and rushed away.
The old clerk looked very uneasily at his younger brother's face. The
livid pallor had passed away, but the strongly-marked eyebrows met in a
dark frown.
"Joseph—Joseph!" said Sampson, "Heaven only knows I'm glad to see you,
after more than thirty years' separation, and any help I can give you
out of my slender means I'll give freely—I will, indeed, Joseph, for
the memory of our dear mother, if not for love of you; and I do love
you, Joseph—I do love you very dearly still. But I'd rather you didn't
take this journey with me—I would, indeed. I can't see that any good
can come of it."
"Never you mind what comes of it. I want to talk to you. You're a nice
affectionate brother to wish to shuffle me off directly after our first
meeting. I want to talk to you, Sampson Wilmot. And I want to see
_him_. I know how the world's used _me_ for the last five-and-thirty
years; I want to see how the same world—such a just and merciful world
as it is—has treated my tempter and betrayer, Henry Dunbar!"
Sampson Wilmot trembled like a leaf. His health had been very feeble
ever since the second shock of paralysis—that dire and silent foe,
whose invisible hand had stricken the old man down as he sat at his
desk, without one moment's warning. His health was feeble, and the
shock of meeting with his brother—this poor lost disgraced brother—whom
he had for five-and-twenty years believed to be dead, had been almost
too much for him. Nor was this all—unutterable terror took possession
of him when he thought of a meeting between Joseph Wilmot and Henry
Dunbar. The old man could remember his brother's words:
"Let him consider it a lucky escape, if, when we next meet, he gets off
scot free!"
Sampson Wilmot had prayed night and day that such a meeting might never
take place. For five-and-thirty years it had been delayed. Surely it
would not take place now.
The old clerk looked nervously at his brother's face.
"Joseph," he murmured, "I'd rather you didn't go with me to
Southampton; I'd rather you didn't meet Mr. Dunbar. You were very badly
treated—cruelly and unjustly treated—nobody knows that better than I.
But it's a long time ago, Joseph—it's a very, very long time ago.
Bitter feelings die out of a man's breast as the years roll by—don't
they, Joseph? Time heals all old wounds, and we learn to forgive others
as we hope to be forgiven—don't we, Joseph?"
"_You_ may," answered the reprobate, fiercely; "I don't!"
He said no more, but sat silent, with his arms folded over his breast.
He looked straight before him out of the carriage-window; but he saw no
more of the pleasant landscape,—the fair fields of waving corn, with
scarlet poppies and deep-blue corn flowers, bright glimpses of sunlit
water, and distant villages, with grey church-turrets, nestling among
trees. He looked out of the carriage-window, and some of earth's
pleasantest pictures sped by him; but he saw no more of that
ever-changing prospect than if he had been looking at a blank sheet of
paper.
Sampson Wilmot sat opposite to him, restless and uneasy, watching his
fierce gloomy countenance.
The clerk took a ticket for his brother at the first station the train
stopped at. But still Joseph was silent.
An hour passed by, and he had not yet spoken.
He had no love for his brother. The world had hardened him. The
consequences of his own sins, falling very heavily upon his head, had
embittered his nature. He looked upon the man whom he had once loved
and trusted as the primary cause of his disgrace and misery, and this
thought influenced his opinion of all mankind.
He could not believe in the goodness of any man, remembering, as he
did, how he had once trusted Henry Dunbar.
The brothers were alone in the carriage.
Sampson watched the gloomy face opposite to him for some time, and
then, with a weary sigh, he drew his handkerchief over his face, and
sank back in the corner of the carriage. But he did not sleep. He was
agitated and anxious. A dizzy faintness had seized upon him, and there
was a strange buzzing in his ears, and unwonted clouds before his dim
eyes. He tried to speak once or twice, but it seemed to him as if he
was powerless to form the words that were in his mind.
Then his mind began to grow confused. The hoarse snorting of the engine
sounded monotonously in his ears: growing louder and louder with every
moment; until the noise of it grew hideous and intolerable—a perpetual
thunder, deafening and bewildering him.
The train was fast approaching Basingstoke, when Joseph Wilmot was
suddenly startled from his moody reverie.
There was an awful cause for that sudden start, that look of horror in
the reprobate's face.