FATHER AND SON.
Sir Reginald Arden had fallen into a doze, as he sat by the fire with
his _Revue des Deux Mondes_, slipping between his finger and thumb, on
his knees. He was recalled by Crozier's voice, and looking up, he saw,
standing near the door, as if in some slight hesitation, a figure not
seen for two years before.
For a moment Sir Reginald doubted his only half-awakened senses. Was
that handsome oval face, with large, soft eyes, with such brilliant
lips, and the dark-brown moustache, so fine, and silken, that had never
known a razor, an unsubstantial portrait hung in the dim air, or his
living son? There were perplexity and surprise in the old man's stare.
"I should have been here before, Sir, but your letter did not reach me
until an hour ago," said Richard Arden.
"By heaven! Dick? And so you came! I believe I was asleep. Give me your
hand. I hope, Dick, we may yet end this miserable quarrel happily.
Father and son can have no real interests apart."
Sir Reginald Arden extended his thin hand, and smiled invitingly but
rather darkly on his son. Graceful and easy this young man was, and yet
embarrassed, as he placed his hand within his father's.
"You will take something, Dick, won't you?"
"Nothing, Sir, thanks."
Sir Reginald was stealthily reading his face. At last he began
circuitously--
"I've a little bit of news to tell you about Alice. How long shall I
allow you to guess what it is?"
"I'm the worst guesser in the world--pray don't wait for me, Sir."
"Well, I have in my desk there--would you mind putting it on the table
here?--a letter from Wynderbroke. You know him?"
"Yes, a little."
"Well, Wynderbroke writes--the letter arrived only an hour ago--to ask
my leave to marry your sister, if she will consent; and he says all he
will do, which is very handsome--very generous indeed. Wait a moment.
Yes, here it is. Read that."
Richard Arden did read the letter, with open eyes and breathless
interest. The old man's eyes were upon him as he did so.
"Well, Richard, what do you think?"
"There can be but one opinion about it. Nothing can be more handsome.
Everything suitable. I only hope that Alice will not be foolish."
"She sha'n't be that, I'll take care," said the old man, locking down
his desk again upon the letter.
"It might possibly be as well, Sir, to prepare her a little at first. I
may possibly be of some little use, and so may Lady May. I only mean
that it might hardly be expedient to make it from the first a matter of
authority, because she has romantic ideas, and she is spirited."
"I'll sleep upon it. I sha'n't see her again till to-morrow evening. She
does not care about anyone in particular, I suppose?"
"Not that I know of," said Richard.
"You'll find it will all be right--it _will_--all right. It _shall_ be
right," said Sir Reginald. And then there was a silence. He was
meditating the other business he had in hand, and again circuitously he
proceeded.
"What's going on at the opera? Who is your great danseuse at present?"
inquired the baronet, with a glimmer of a leer. "I haven't seen a ballet
for more than six years. And why? I needn't tell you. You know the
miserable life I lead. Egad! there are fellows placed everywhere to
watch me. There would be an execution in this house this night, if the
miserable tables and chairs were not my brother David's property. Upon
my life, Craven, my attorney, had to serve two notices on the sheriff in
one term, to caution him not to sell your uncle's furniture for my
debts. I shouldn't have had a joint-stool to sit down on, if it hadn't
been for that. And I had to get out of the railway-carriage, by heaven!
for fear of arrest, and come home--if home I can call this ruin--by
posting all the way, except a few miles. I did not dare to tell Craven I
was coming back. I wrote from Twyford, where I--I--took a fancy to sleep
last night, to no human being but yourself. My comfort is that they and
all the world believe that I'm still in France. It is a pleasant state
of things!"
"I am grieved, Sir, to think you suffer so much."
"I know it. I knew it. I know you are, Dick," said the old man eagerly.
"And my life is a perfect hell. I can nowhere in England find rest for
the sole of my foot. I am suffering perpetually the most miserable
mortifications, and the tortures of the damned. I know you are sorry. It
can't be pleasant to you to see your father the miserable outcast, and
fugitive, and victim he so often is. And I'll say distinctly--I'll say
at once--for it was with this one purpose I sent for you--that no son
with a particle of human feeling, with a grain of conscience, or an atom
of principle, could endure to see it, when he knew that by a stroke of
his pen he could undo it all, and restore a miserable parent to life and
liberty! Now, Richard, you have my mind. I have concealed nothing, and
I'm sure, Dick, I know, I _know_ you won't see your father perish by
inches, rather than sign the warrant for his liberation. For God's sake,
Dick, my boy speak out! Have you the heart to reject your miserable
father's petition? Do you wish me to kneel to you? I love you, Dick,
although you don't admit it. I'll kneel to you, Dick--I'll kneel to you.
I'll go on my knees to you."
His hands were clasped; he made a movement. His great prominent eyes
were fixed on Richard Arden's face, which he was reading with a great
deal of eagerness, it is true, but also with a dark and narrow
shrewdness.
"Good heaven, Sir, don't stir, I implore! If you do, I must leave the
room," said Richard, embarrassed to a degree that amounted to agitation.
"And I must tell you, Sir--it is very painful, but, I could not help it,
necessity drove me to it--if I were ever so desirous, it is out of my
power now. I have dealt with my reversion. I have executed a deed."
"You have been with the Jews!" cried the old man, jumping to his feet.
"You have been dealing, by way of _post obit_, with my estate!"
Richard Arden looked down. Sir Reginald was as nearly white as his
yellow tint would allow; his large eyes were gleaming fire--he looked as
if he would have snatched the poker, and brained his son.
"But what could I do, Sir? I had no other resource. I was forbidden your
house; I had no money."
"You lie, Sir!" yelled the old man, with a sudden flash, and a hammer of
his thin trembling fist on the table. "You had a hundred and fifty
pounds a year of your mother's."
"But that, Sir, could not possibly support any one. I was compelled to
act as I did. You really, Sir, left me no choice."
"Now, now, now, now, now! you're not to run away with the thing, you're
not to run away with it; you sha'n't run away with it, Sir. You could
have made a submission, you know you could. I was open to be reconciled
at any time--always too ready. You had only to do as you ought to have
done, and I'd have received you with open arms; you know I would--I
_would_--you had only to unite our interests in the estates, and I'd
have done everything to make you happy, and you know it. But you have
taken the step--you have done it, and it is irrevocable. You have done
it, and you've ruined me; and I pray to God you have ruined yourself!"
With every sinew quivering, the old man was pulling the bell-rope
violently with his left hand. Over his shoulder, on his son, he glanced
almost maniacally. "Turn him out!" he screamed to Crozier, stamping;
"put him out by the collar. Shut the door upon him, and lock it; and if
he ever dares to call here again, slam it in his face. I have done with
him for ever!"
Richard Arden had already left the room, and this closing passage was
lost on him. But he heard the old man's voice as he walked along the
corridor, and it was still in his ears as he passed the hall-door; and,
running down the steps, he jumped into his cab. Crozier held the
cab-door open, and wished Mr. Richard a kind good-night. He stood on the
steps to see the last of the cab as it drove down the shadowy avenue and
was lost in gloom. He sighed heavily. What a broken family it was! He
was an old servant, born on their northern estate--loyal, and somewhat
rustic--and, certainly, had the baronet been less in want of money, not
exactly the servant he would have chosen.
"The old gentleman cannot last long," he said, as he followed the sound
of the retreating wheels with his gaze, "and then Master Richard will
take his turn, and what one began the other will finish. It is all up
with the Ardens. Sir Reginald ruined, Master Harry murdered, and Master
David turned tradesman! There's a curse on the old house."
He heard the baronet's tread faintly, pacing the floor in agitation, as
he passed his door; and when he reached the housekeeper's room, that old
lady, Mrs. Tansey, was alone and all of a tremble, standing at the door.
Before her dim staring eyes had risen an oft-remembered scene: the
ivy-covered gatehouse at Mortlake Hall; the cold moon glittering down
through the leafless branches; the grey horse on its side across the
gig-shaft, and the two villains--one rifling and the other murdering
poor Henry Arden, the baronet's gay and reckless brother.
"Lord, Mr. Crozier! what's crossed Sir Reginald?" she said huskily,
grasping the servant's wrist with her lean hand. "Master Dick, I do
suppose. I thought he was to come no more. They quarrel always. I'm like
to faint, Mr. Crozier."
"Sit ye down, Mrs. Tansey, Ma'am; you should take just a thimbleful of
something. What has frightened you?"
"There's a scritch in Sir Reginald's voice--mercy on us!--when he raises
it so; it is the very cry of poor Master Harry--his last cry, when the
knife pierced him. I'll never forget it!"
The old woman clasped her fingers over her eyes, and shook her head
slowly.
"Well, that's over and ended this many a day, and past cure. We need not
fret ourselves no more about it--'tis thirty years since."
"Two-and-twenty the day o' the Longden steeple-chase. I've a right to
remember it." She closed her eyes again. "Why can't they keep apart?"
she resumed. "If father and son can't look one another in the face
without quarrelling, better they should turn their backs on one another
for life. Why need they come under one roof? The world's wide enough."
"So it is--and no good meeting and argufying; for Mr. Dick will never
open the estate," remarked Mr. Crozier.
"And more shame for him!" said Mrs. Tansey. "He's breaking his father's
heart. It troubles him more," she added in a changed tone, "I'm
thinking, than ever poor Master Harry's death did. There's none living
of his kith or kin cares about it now but Master David. He'll never let
it rest while he lives."
"He _may_ let it rest, for he'll never make no hand of it," said
Crozier. "Would you object, Ma'am, to my making a glass of something
hot?--you're gone very pale."
Mrs. Tansey assented, and the conversation grew more comfortable. And so
the night closed over the passions and the melancholy of Mortlake Hall.