The Father and the Son.
I Will have nothing to do with antecedents. The reader must find them
out if he can, as the book must explain what precedes the book.
The past is a tomb. There let events, as well as men, sleep in peace.
Fate befal him who disturbs them; and indeed were there not even a
sort of profanation in raking up things done as well as in troubling
the ashes of the dead, what does man obtain by breaking into the grave
of the past? Nothing but dry bones, denuded of all that made the
living act interesting. History is but a great museum of osteology,
where the skeletons of great deeds are preserved without the
muscles--here a tall fact and there a short one; some sadly
dismembered, and all crumbling with age, and covered with dust and
cobwebs. Take up a skull, chapfallen as Yorick's. See how it grins at
you with its lank jaws and gumless teeth. See how the vacant sockets
of the eyes glare meaningless, and the brow, where high intelligence
sat throned, commanding veneration, looks little wiser than a dried
pumpkin. And thus--even thus, as insignificant of the living deeds
that have been, are the dry bones of history, needing the inductive
imagination of a Cuvier to clothe them again with the forms that once
they wore.
No, no, I will have nothing to do with antecedents. They were past
before the Tale began, and let them rest.
Nevertheless, it is always well worth while, in order to avoid any
long journeys back, to keep every part of the story going at once, and
manfully to resist both our own inclination and the reader's, to
follow any particular character, or class of characters, or series of
events. Rather let us, going from scene to scene, and person to
person, as often as it may be necessary, bring them up from the rear.
It is likewise well worth while to pursue the career of such new
character that may be introduced, till those who are newly made
acquainted with him, have discovered a sufficient portion of his
peculiarities.
I shall therefore beg leave to follow Mr. Wittingham on his way
homeward; but first I will ask the reader to remark him as he pauses
for a moment at the inn-door, with worthy Mr. Groomber a step behind.
See how the excellent magistrate rubs the little vacant spot between
the ear and the wig with the fore-finger of the right-hand, as if he
were a man amazingly puzzled, and then turns his head over his
shoulder to inquire of the landlord if he knows who the two guests
are, without obtaining any further information than that one of them
had been for some weeks in the house--which Mr. Wittingham well knew
before, he having the organ of Observation strongly developed--and
that the other had just arrived; a fact which was also within the
worthy magistrate's previous cognizance.
Mr. Wittingham rubs the organ above the ear again, gets the finger up
to Ideality, and rubs that, then round to Cautiousness, and having
slightly excited it with the extreme point of the index of the
right-hand, pauses there, as if afraid of stimulating it too strongly,
and unmanning his greater purposes. But it is a ticklish organ, soon
called into action, in some men, and see how easily Mr. Wittingham has
brought its functions into operation. He buttons his coat up to the
chin as if it were winter, and yet it is as mild an evening as one
could wish to take a walk in by the side of a clear stream, with the
fair moon for a companion, or something fairer still. It is evident
that Cautiousness is at work at a terrible rate, otherwise he would
never think of buttoning up his coat on such a night as that; and now
without another word to the landlord, he crosses the street, and bends
his steps homeward with a slow, thoughtful, vacillating step,
murmuring to himself two or three words which our friend Ned Hayward
had pronounced, as if they contained some spell which forced his
tongue to their repetition.
"Very like me," he said, "very like me? Hang the fellow! Very like me!
Why, what the devil--he can't mean to accuse me of robbing the
carriage. Very like me! Then, as the mischief must have it, that it
should be Mrs. Clifford too! I shall have roystering Sir John upon my
back--'pon my life, I do not know what to do. Perhaps it would be
better to be civil to these two young fellows, and ask them to dinner;
though I do not half like that Beauchamp--I always thought there was
something suspicious about him with his grave look, and his long
solitary walks, nobody knowing him, and he knowing nobody. Yet this
Captain Hayward seems a great friend of his, and he is a friend of Sir
John's--so he must be somebody--I wonder who the devil he is?
Beauchamp?--Beauchamp? I shouldn't wonder if he were some man
rusticated from Oxford. I'll write and ask Henry. He can most likely
tell."
The distance which Mr. Wittingham had to go was by no means great, for
the little town contained only three streets--one long one, and two
others leading out of it. In one of the latter, or rather at the end
of one of the latter, for it verged upon the open country beyond the
town, was a large house, his own particular dwelling, built upon the
rise of the hill, with large gardens and pleasure-grounds surrounding
it, a new, well-constructed, neatly pointed, brick wall, two green
gates, and sundry conservatories. It had altogether an air of
freshness and comfort about it which was certainly pleasant to look
upon; but it had nothing venerable. It spoke of fortunes lately made,
and riches fully enjoyed, because they had not always been possessed.
It was too neat to be picturesque, too smart to be in good taste. I
was a bit of Clapham or Tooting transported a hundred or two miles
into the country--very suburban indeed!
And yet it is possible that Mr. Wittingham had never seen Clapham in
his life, or Tooting either; for he had been born in the town where he
now lived, had accumulated wealth, as a merchant on a small scale, in
a sea-port town about fifty miles distant; had improved considerably,
by perseverance, a very limited stock of abilities; and, having done
all this in a short time, had returned at the age of fifty, to enact
the country gentleman in his native place. With the ordinary ambition
of low minds, however, he wished much that his origin, and the means
of his rise should be forgotten by those who knew them, concealed from
those who did not; and therefore he dressed like a country gentleman,
spoke like a country gentleman, hunted with the fox-hounds, and added
"J. P." to his "Esquire."
Nevertheless, do what he would, there was something of his former
calling that still remained about him. It is a dirty world this we
live in, and every thing has its stain. A door is never painted five
minutes, but some indelible finger-mark is printed on it; a table is
never polished half an hour, but some drop of water falls and spots
it. Give either precisely the same colour again, if you can! Each
trade, each profession, from the shopkeeper to the prime minister,
marks its man more or less for life, and I am not quite sure that the
stamp of one is much fouler than that of another. There is great
vulgarity in all pride, and most of all in official pride, and the
difference between that vulgarity, and the vulgarity of inferior
education is not in favour of the former; for it affects the mind,
while the other principally affects the manner.
Heaven and earth, what a ramble I have taken! but I will go back again
gently by a path across the fields. Something of the merchant, the
small merchant, still hung about Mr. Wittingham. It was not alone that
he kept all his books by double entry, and even in his magisterial
capacity, when dealing with rogues and vagabonds, had a sort of debtor
and creditor account with them, very curious in its items; neither was
it altogether that he had a vast idea of the importance of wealth, and
looked upon a good banker's book, with heavy balance in favour, as the
chief of the cardinal virtues; but there were various peculiarities of
manner and small traits of character, which displayed the habit of
mind to inquiring eyes very remarkably. His figures of speech,
whenever he forgot himself for a moment were all of the
counting-house: when on the bench he did not know what to do with his
legs for want of a high stool; but the trait with which we have most
to do was a certain propensity to inquire into the solidity and
monetary respectability of all men, whether they came into
relationship with himself or not. He looked upon them all as "Firms,"
with whom at some time he might have to transact business; and I much
doubt whether he did not mentally put "and Co.," to the name of every
one of his acquaintances. Now Beauchamp and Co. puzzled him; he
doubted that the house was firm; he could make nothing out of their
affairs; he had not, since Mr. Beauchamp first appeared in the place,
been able even to get a glimpse of their transactions; and though it
was but a short distance, as I have said, from the inn to his own
dwelling, before he had reached the latter, he had asked himself at
least twenty times, "Who and what Mr. Beauchamp could be?"
"I should like to look at his ledger," said Mr. Wittingham to himself
at length, as he opened his gate and went in; but there was a book
open for Mr. Wittingham in his own house, which was not likely to show
a very favourable account.
Although the door of Mr. Wittingham's house, which was a glass door,
stood confidingly unlocked as long as the sun was above the horizon,
yet Mr. Wittingham had always a pass-key in his pocket, and when the
first marble step leading from the gravel walk up to the entrance was
found, the worthy magistrate's hand was always applied to an aperture
in his upper garment just upon the haunch, from which the key was sure
to issue forth, whether the door was open or not.
The door, however, was now shut, and the pass-key proved serviceable;
but no sooner did Mr. Wittingham stand in the passage of his own
mansion than he stopped short in breathless and powerless
astonishment; for there before him stood two figures in close
confabulation, which he certainly did not expect to see in that place,
at that time, in such near proximity.
The one was that of a woman, perhaps fifty-five years of age, but who
looked still older from the fact of being dressed in the mode of
thirty years before. Her garments might be those of an upper servant,
and indeed they were so; for the personage was neither more nor less
than the housekeeper; but to all appearance she was a resuscitated
housekeeper of a former age; for the gown padded in a long roll just
under the blade-bones, the straight cut bodice, the tall but
flat-crowned and wide-spreading cap, were not of the day in which she
lived, and her face too was as dry as the outer shell of a cocoa-nut.
The other figure had the back turned to the door, and was evidently
speaking earnestly to Mrs. Billiter; but it was that of a man, tall,
and though stiffly made, yet sinewy and strong.
Mr. Wittingham's breath came thick and short, but the noise of his
suddenly opening the door, and his step in the hall, made the
housekeeper utter a low cry of surprise, and her male companion turn
quickly round. Then Mr. Wittingham's worst apprehensions were
realised, for the face he saw before him was that of his own son,
though somewhat disfigured by an eye swollen and discoloured, and a
deep long cut just over it on the brow.
The young man seemed surprised and confounded by the unexpected
apparition of his father, but it was too late to shirk the encounter,
though he well knew it would not be a pleasant one. He was accustomed,
too, to scenes of altercation with his parent, for Mr. Wittingham had
not proceeded wisely with his son, who was a mere boy when he himself
retired from business. He had not only alternately indulged him and
thwarted him; encouraged him to spend money largely, and to dazzle the
eyes of the neighbours by expense, at the same time limiting his means
and exacting a rigid account of his payments; but as the young man had
grown up he had continued sometimes to treat him as a boy, sometimes
as a man; and while he more than connived at his emulating the great
in those pleasures which approach vices, he denied him the sums by
which such a course could alone be carried out.
Thus a disposition, naturally vehement and passionate, had been
rendered irritable and reckless, and a character self-willed and
perverse had become obstinate and disobedient. Dispute after dispute
arose between father and son after the spoilt boy became the daring
and violent youth, till at length Mr. Wittingham, for the threefold
purpose of putting him under some sort of discipline, of removing him
from bad associates, and giving him the tone of a gentleman, had sent
him to Oxford. One year had passed over well enough, but at the
commencement of the second year, Mr. Wittingham found that his
notions of proper economy were very different from his son's, and that
Oxford was not likely to reconcile the difference. He heard of him
horse-racing, driving stagecoaches, betting on pugilists, gambling,
drinking, getting deeper and deeper in debt; and his letters of
remonstrance were either not answered at all, or answered with
contempt.
A time had come, however, when the absolute necessity of recruiting
his finances from his father's purse had reduced the youth to promises
of amendment and a feigned repentance; and just at the time our tale
opens, the worthy magistrate was rocking himself in the cradle of
delusive expectations, and laying out many a plan for the future life
of his reformed son, when suddenly as we have seen, he found him
standing talking to the housekeeper in his own hall with the marks of
a recent scuffle very visible on his face.
The consternation of Mr. Wittingham was terrible; for though by no
means a man of ready combinations in any other matter than pounds,
shillings and pence, his fancy was not so slow a beast as to fail in
joining together the description which Ned Hayward had given of the
marks he had set upon one of the worthy gentlemen who had been found
attacking Mrs. Clifford's carriage, and the cuts and bruises upon the
fair face of his gentle offspring. He had also various private reasons
of his own for supposing that such an enterprise as that which had
been interrupted in Tarningham-lane, as the place was called, might
very well come within the sphere of his son's energies, and for a
moment he gave himself up to a sort of apathetic despair, seeing all
his fond hopes of rustic rule and provincial importance dashed to the
ground by the conduct of his own child.
It was reserved for that child to rouse him from his stupor, however;
for, though undoubtedly the apparition of his father was any thing but
pleasant to Henry Wittingham, at that particular moment, when he was
arranging with the housekeeper (who had aided to spoil him with all
her energies) that he was to have secret board and lodging in the
house for a couple of days, without his parent's knowledge, yet his
was a bold spirit, not easily cowed, and much accustomed to outface
circumstances however disagreeable they might be. Marching straight up
to his father then, without a blush, as soon as he had recovered from
the first surprise, he said, "So, you see I have come back, Sir, for a
day or two to worship my household gods, as we say at Oxford, and to
get a little more money; for you did not send me enough. However, it
may be as well, for various reasons, not to let people know that I am
here. Our old dons do not like us to be absent without leave, and may
think that I ought to have notified to them my intention of giving you
such an agreeable surprise."
Such overpowering impudence was too much for Mr. Wittingham's
patience, the stock of which was somewhat restricted; and he first
swore a loud and very unmagisterial oath; then, however, recollecting
himself, without abating one particle of his wrath, he said in a stern
tone, and with a frowning brow, "Be so good as to walk into that room
for five minutes, Sir."
"Lord, Sir, don't be angry," exclaimed the housekeeper, who did not at
all like the look of her master's face, "it is only a frolic, Sir."
"Hold your tongue, Billiter! you are a fool," thundered Mr.
Wittingham. "Walk in there, Sir, and you shall soon hear my mind as to
your frolics."
"Oh, certainly, I will walk in," replied his son, not appearing in the
least alarmed, though there was something in the expression of his
father's countenance that did frighten him a little, because he had
never seen that something before--something difficult to describe--a
struggle as it were with himself, which showed the anger he felt to be
more profound than he thought it right to show all at once. "I
certainly will walk in and take a cup of tea if you will give me one,"
and as he spoke he passed the door into the library.
"You will neither eat nor drink in this house more, till your conduct
is wholly changed, Sir," said Mr. Wittingham, shutting the door behind
him, "the books are closed, Sir--there is a large balance against you,
and that must be liquidated before they can be opened again. What
brought you here?"
"What I have said," answered the young man, beginning to feel that his
situation was not a very good one, but still keeping up his affected
composure, "the yearnings of filial affection and a lack of
pocket-money."
"So, you can lie too, to your father," said Mr. Wittingham, bitterly.
"You will find that I can tell the truth however, and to begin, I will
inform you of what brought you hither--but no, it would take too much
time to do that; for the sooner you are gone the better for yourself
and all concerned--you must go, Sir, I tell you--you must go
directly."
A hesitation had come upon Mr. Wittingham while he spoke; his voice
shook, his lip quivered, his tall frame was terribly agitated; and his
son attributed all these external signs of emotion to a very different
cause from the real one. He thought he saw in them the symptoms of a
relenting parent, or at least of an irresolute one, and he prepared to
act accordingly; while his father thought of nothing but the danger of
having him found in his house, after the commission of such an outrage
as that which he had perpetrated that night; but the very thought made
him tremble in every limb--not so much for his son indeed, as for
himself.
"I beg pardon, my dear Sir," replied the young man, recovering all his
own impudence at the sight of his father's agitation; "but it would
not be quite convenient for me to go to-night. It is late, I am tired;
my purse is very empty."
"Pray how did you get that cut upon your head?" demanded the
magistrate, abruptly.
"Oh, a little accident," replied his son; "it is a mere
scratch--nothing at all."
"It looks very much like a blow from the butt-end of a heavy
horsewhip," said his father, sternly; "just such as a man who had
stopped two ladies in a carriage, might receive from a strong arm come
to their rescue. You do not propose to go then? Well, if that be the
case, I must send for the constable and give you into his hands, for
there is an information laid against you for felony, and witnesses
ready to swear to your person. Shall I ring the bell, or do you go?"
The young man's face had turned deadly pale, and he crushed the two
sides of his hat together between his hands. He uttered but one word,
however, and that was, "Money."
"Not a penny," answered Mr. Wittingham, turning his shoulder, "not one
penny, you have had too much already--you would make me bankrupt and
yourself too." The next moment, however, he continued, "Stay; on one
condition, I will give you twenty pounds."
"What is it?" asked the son, eagerly, but somewhat fiercely too, for
he suspected that the condition would be hard.
"It is that you instantly go back to Oxford, and swear by all you hold
sacred--if you hold any thing sacred at all--not to quit it for twelve
months, or till Mary Clifford is married."
"You ask what I cannot do," said the son, in a tone of deep and bitter
despondency, contrasting strangely with that which he had previously
used; "I cannot go back to Oxford. You must know all in time, and may
as well know it now--I am expelled from Oxford; and you had your share
in it, for had you sent me what I asked, I should not have been driven
to do what I have done. I cannot go back; and as to abandoning my
pursuit of Mary Clifford, I will not do that either. I love her, and
she shall be mine, sooner or later, let who will say no."
"Expelled from Oxford!" cried Mr. Wittingham, with his eyes almost
starting from their sockets. "Get out of my sight, and out of my
house; go where you will---do what you will--you are no son of mine
any more. Away with you, or I will myself give you into custody, and
sign the warrant for your committal. Not a word more, Sir, begone; you
may take your clothes, if you will, but let me see no more of you. I
cast you off; begone, I say."
"I go," answered his son, "but one day you will repent of this, and
wish me back, when perhaps you will not be able to find me."
"No fear of that," answered Mr. Wittingham, "if you do not return till
I seek you, the house will be long free from your presence. Away with
you at once, and no more words."
Without reply, Henry Wittingham quitted the room, and hurried up to
the bed-chamber, which he inhabited when he was at home, opened
several drawers, and took out various articles of dress, and some
valuable trinkets--a gold chain, a diamond brooch, two or three
jewelled pins and rings. He lingered a little, perhaps fancying that
his father might relent, perhaps calculating what his own conduct
should be when he was summoned back to the library. But when he had
been about five minutes in his chamber, there was a tap at the door;
and the housekeeper came in.
"It is no use, Billiter," said the young man, "I am going. My father
has treated me shamefully."
"It is no use indeed, Master Harry," replied the good woman, "he is as
hard as stone. I have said every thing he would let me say, but he
drove me out of the room like a wild beast. But don't give it up,
Master Harry. Go away for a day or two to Burton's Inn, by
Chandleigh--he'll come round in time, and you can very well spend a
week or so there, and be very comfortable."
"But money, Billiter, money!" exclaimed the young man, whose heart had
sunk again to find that all his expectations of his father's
resolution giving way were vain. "What shall I do for money?"
"Stay a bit, stay a bit," said the good woman; "what I have got you
may have, Master Harry, as welcome as the flowers in May. I've ten
pounds here in this little purse;" and she dived into one of the large
pockets that hung outside of her capacious petticoat, producing a very
dirty, old knitted purse with a steel clasp, and adding, as she put it
in her young master's hand, "It is a pity now that Mr. Wittingham
wheedled me into putting all the rest of my earnings into the
Tarningham bank, where he has a share---but that will do for the
present, if you are careful, Master Harry--but don't go to drink
claret and such expensive nasty stuff, there's a good boy."
"That I won't, Billiter," answered Henry Wittingham, pocketing the
money without remorse of conscience, "and I will repay you when I
can--some day or another I shall certainly be able, for the houses at
Exmouth are settled upon me;" and packing up all that he thought fit
to take in a large silk-handkerchief, he opened the door again, and
began to descend the stairs. A chilly sensation crept over him ere he
reached the bottom, as memory brought back happy days, and he thought
that he was going forth from the home of his youth, perhaps for ever,
that he was an exile from his father's dwelling, from his love, an
outcast, a wanderer, with nothing but his own wayward spirit for his
guide--nought but his own pride for his support. He was not yet
sufficiently hardened to bear the shadow of his exile lightly, to look
upon it as a relief from restraint, a mere joyous adventure which
would have its interest during its progress, and would soon be over.
But, nevertheless, his pride was strong, and as yet unchecked; and
when the thought of going back to his father, asking his forgiveness,
and promising all that he required, crossed his mind, he cast it from
him with disdain, saying, "Never! never! He shall ask me humbly
first." And, with this very lowly determination, he walked out of the
house.
"I shall be able to hear of you at Burton's, by Chandleigh," said the
housekeeper, as he stood on the top step.
"Yes, yes, you will hear of me there," he replied, and descending the
steps, he was soon wandering in darkness amongst parterres, every step
of the way being as familiar to him as his father's library.