It was just two years after Jill's baby had been born that a very
wonderful thing occurred; Mr St. John senior visited Thompkins and Co.
for no less a purpose than calling upon his son's wife. He did not come
unexpectedly; he wrote a week beforehand apprising them of the fact, and
duly on the appointed date he pushed open the outer door and entered the
mean little shop, standing in it, as it were, protestingly, his hat off,
his shoulders slightly bowed; tall, and cross, and dignified--frowning
at his son. St. John came forward quickly. He was expecting his father
but pride forbade his making any preparation. He had been in the studio
during the early part of the afternoon and was still in his working
clothes though Jill had suggested to him the propriety of changing, but
he had chosen to ignore the suggestion, arguing that that which was good
enough for his wife should be good enough for his father too; and so he
came forward as he was and stood in front of the visitor just as he
might have done had he been any ordinary customer. The old man's glance
travelled slowly from the strong face with its proud smile to the shabby
suit of clothes, the stains upon them testifying to the nature of the
wearer's work, and his carelessness as an operator. As he looked he
smiled also. It was not a pleasant smile, and the younger man silently
resented it.
"Photography does not appear a very lucrative employment," he observed.
"No," answered St. John. "At least I do not find it so."
"Ah! Well, no doubt that assists you to realise the mistake you made."
"I made no mistake," the other interrupted shortly. "If you refer to my
marriage that is the one thing I have never--and shall never regret."
"Yet it has been the means of reducing you to your present strait."
"Pardon me," retorted the younger man, "want of a profession, and not my
marriage, has been the means of my poverty. If I failed in my duty to
you as a son remember that you in the first place failed in your duty to
me."
The grey brows drew together over the high-bridged nose, and the old
eyes glared angrily into the young, indignant ones.
"I brought you up to the profession of a gentleman," Mr St. John
remarked.
"If by the `profession of a gentleman' you mean a dependent beggar--a
parasite--a less than menial," rejoined the son, "you did. And until I
met Jill I was not man enough to feel the degradation of it."
"Until you met Jill you were not a fool," snapped his father.
"We won't discuss that point further," St. John rejoined; "it is one on
which we are never likely to agree. You wanted, your note said, to see
Jill. I can't imagine why, but if you still wish to see her we will go
upstairs at once."
Mr St. John having intimated that a two minutes' uncomfortable
conversation with his son had not altered his intention in coming, the
latter turned impatiently upon his heel and led the way to the
sitting-room where Jill was waiting with her little boy, striving, in
her efforts to amuse him, to stifle her own nervousness and vague
misgivings.
The child was simply and daintily dressed in white, and had grown from a
puny infant into a sturdy, healthy little man, with more than an
ordinary share of good looks and good spirits, and a very charming and
lovable disposition. Jill idolised him, but she was wise in her love,
and the spoiling--if spoiling it could be called--was of a very
judicious kind, tending chiefly to bring out the best qualities in the
impressionable baby-nature, so that surrounded, as this baby was, with
love and care and tenderness, he bade fair to turn out a generous,
affectionate, happy little fellow; and if he were not as well off as
some babies, at least he had been born without the silver spoon, and so
was not likely to feel the deprivation.
Jill had been playing with him on the floor, doing her best to keep him
good-tempered before his grandfather's arrival; for with her
mother-instinct she associated this visit with the child, and was
naturally anxious that he should appear at his best. When she heard
their steps upon the stairs she scrambled hastily to a more dignified
position, and stood with bright eyes, and flushed cheeks waiting to
receive her former enemy. She had not forgotten his first and only
other visit to her; she was not likely to forget it, nor to forgive him
the pain he made her suffer then, and the insult which he had offered
her. But she was content to ignore the past for her husband's sake more
than her own, and equally ready to treat her father-in-law with a
politeness and consideration that he had no right to expect at her
hands. Doubtless he remembered the incident also; he certainly did not
anticipate a welcome, for he returned her cool little bow with equal
distance--indeed hardly appeared to notice her at all. It was evident
that if she had not forgiven him neither had he forgiven her; to her he
owed the upsetting of all his plans, and his present lonely, childless
condition, and he was not the sort of man who easily forgot an injury,
nor readily pardoned the offender. His supercilious gaze rested for an
instant on the mother's face, and then wandered away to the child's,
taking in every detail of the baby-features from the wide, curious eyes,
so absurdly like Jill's both in expression and colouring, to the pretty
curved lips, and rounded chin which even then gave promise of being as
square and obstinate as his father's. What he saw apparently pleased
him; his features relaxed a little, Jill even fancied that he smiled
back when the child in his friendly, confiding fashion smiled up at him,
though if such were the case, which was doubtful, he made no further
advance. He had never cared for children, and he did not now pretend to
feel any interest in this one more than another. He had not come to see
his grandson, but merely to make a proposal concerning him, and this
proposal he forthwith expounded to the baby's parents to their no small
astonishment and dismay. His offer--and it was a good one from a
worldly point of view--was to adopt the child altogether; to take him at
the age of seven from his present surroundings and bring him up as he
had brought up the father, bequeathing, at his death, his entire fortune
to him unconditionally. He made no stipulation against the child seeing
his parents as often as the latter wished, but he was not to live with
them, nor to stay beneath their roof for any length of time.
When he had finished speaking he looked towards his son, but St. John
shook his head decisively, and turned abruptly away; he could not answer
such a question; he felt that he had not the right to do so.
"Ask his mother," was all he said.
"Petticoat government, eh?" sneered the old man. "I appealed to you
because I hoped that you would have profited by your own experience and
been glad of the opportunity of giving your son a chance. With women it
is different; they are so beastly selfish in their love; they always
want the object of their affection near them."
"Ask his mother," St. John repeated in a hard voice. "A mother has more
right than anyone else to decide the future of her child."
Jill, who had remained till now impassive, listening open-eyed to all
she heard, came forward as her husband finished speaking and stood
between the old man and the baby on the floor as though she would
protect the child from his grandfather's designs. She was quite calm
and collected; St. John wondered rather at her evident self-control.
"It is very good of you, Mr St. John," she said, "to make Baby such a
handsome offer. But you are wrong in thinking that a mother's love is
selfish; it is not where it is real; and it is entirely in my baby's
interests that I am going to regard your proposal."
"Going to refuse it you mean," he snapped.
Jill smiled.
"Going to refuse it if you like to put it that way," she said. "Of
course it would be splendid for Baby in one sense, but I don't think it
would be kind. I have never approved of bringing children up in a
different position to their parents. My boy, no matter how good-hearted
he turned out, would grow to look down upon his father, and the poor
little shop with its poorer photographs, and upon the kind old man who
stood Godfather to him, and drops his h's, but loves the child almost as
though he were his own. I have heard of such things before. Children
who are exalted to very different positions to their parents learn to
despise them, and feel ashamed of them, and then, of course, they
despise themselves for doing so; and altogether it is very hopeless, and
rather cruel, I think.
"Don't fancy me ungrateful; it is not that. It isn't that I wouldn't
spare my boy if I considered it all for the best; but I don't I think he
will be a much happier, and a better little boy if he is brought up just
as well as we can manage, with no more brilliant prospect than the
knowledge that he has to make his own way in the world as his father did
before him."
"So you are going to make an independent beggar of him as you did of his
father, eh? Well, I would have made him an independent gentleman. But
no matter. You possess the right unfortunately of ruining both their
futures. Perhaps one day you will remember my offer with regret, but
understand, please that I shall not renew it; neither will you or yours
benefit from me in any way."
"I had never expected that we should," Jill answered with proud
simplicity. "I have not been accustomed to luxury and so don't feel the
need of it. It is harder for my husband than for me, harder for him
than it will be for the boy; but I don't fancy that Jack minds it much."
"Jack is a fool," his father answered bitterly. "He could have been
anything almost if he had followed out my wishes."
St. John smiled faintly. He did not resent the slighting epithet
applied to himself; he understood in a way, the old man's keen
disappointment, and felt more sorry than chagrined at his unrelenting
harshness.
"Don't think too much about it, sir," he said; "I should have been bound
to fail you somehow. I was never one of those brainy ambitious fellows,
you know; it takes more than money to make a great career."
"It takes a _man_," Mr St. John answered sententiously. He had not sat
down throughout the brief interview, although his son had placed a chair
for him, and now he turned to go with less ceremony than when he
entered. He even omitted the courtesy of bowing to Jill; he simply
walked out without looking at her. St. John followed him and opened the
shop door for him to pass through.
"Good-bye," he said earnestly. "I regret the breach between us with all
my heart--though that will hardly bridge it over, will it? If at any
time you want me you have only to command."
"You have always obeyed my commands so readily, eh?" retorted his
father. "I am not likely to trouble you again. By the way you need not
consider it necessary in future to make a kind of family Bible of me for
the chronicling of domestic events. Our intercourse is at an end from
this date. I neither wish to hear of, nor to see you again."