SCARBOROUGH'S REVENGE.
All these things were not done at Tretton altogether unknown to Augustus
Scarborough. Tidings as to the will reached him, and then he first
perceived the injury he had done himself in lending his assistance to
the payment of the creditors. Had his brother been utterly bankrupt, so
that the Jews might have seized any money that might have come to him,
his father would have left no will in his favor. All that was now
intelligible to Augustus. The idea that his father should strip the
house of every stick of furniture, and the estate of every chattel upon
it, had not occurred to him before the thing was done.
He had thought that his father was indifferent to all personal offence,
and therefore he had been offensive. He found out his mistake, and
therefore was angry with himself. But he still thought that he had been
right in regard to the creditors. Had the creditors been left in the
possession of their unpaid bonds, they would have offered terrible
impediments to the taking possession of the property. He had been right
then, he thought. The fact was that his father had lived too long.
However, the property would be left to him, Augustus, and he must make
up his mind to buy the other things from Mountjoy. He at any rate would
have to provide the funds out of which Mountjoy must live, and he would
take care that he did not buy the chattels twice over. It was thus he
consoled himself till rumors of something worse reached his ears.
How the rumors reached him it would be difficult to say. There were
probably some among the servants who got an inkling of what the squire
was doing when Mr. Grey again came down; or Miss Scarborough had some
confidential friend; or Mr. Grey's clerk may have been indiscreet. The
tidings in some unformed state did reach Augustus and astounded him. His
belief in his father's story as to his brother's illegitimacy had been
unfixed and doubtful. Latterly it had verged toward more thorough belief
as the creditors had taken their money,--less than a third of what would
have been theirs had the power remained with them of recovering their
full debt. The creditors had thus proved their belief, and they were a
people not likely to believe such a statement without some foundation.
But at any rate he had conceived it to be impossible that his own
father should go back from his first story, and again make himself out
to be doubly a liar and doubly a knave.
But if it were so, what should he do? Was it not the case that in such
event he would be altogether ruined,--a penniless adventurer with his
profession absolutely gone from him? What little money he had got
together had been expended on behalf of Mountjoy,--a sprat thrown out to
catch a whale. Everything according to the present tidings had been left
to Mountjoy. He had only half known his father, who had turned against
him with virulence because of his unkindness. Who could have expected
that a man in such a condition should have lived so long, and have been
capable of a will so powerful? He had not dreamed of a hatred so
inveterate as his father's for him.
He received news also from Tretton that his father was not now expected
by any one to live long.
"It may be a week, the doctors say, and it is hardly possible that he
should remain alive for another month." Such was the news which reached
him from his own emissary at Tretton. What had he better do in the
emergency of the moment?
There was only one possibly effective step that he could take. He might,
of course, remain tranquil, and accept what chance might give him, when
his father should have died. But he might at once go down to Tretton and
demand an interview with the dying man. He did not think that his
father, even on his death-bed, would refuse to see him. His father's
pluck was indomitable, and he thought that he could depend on his own
pluck. At any rate he resolved that he would immediately go to Tretton
and take his chance. He reached the house about the middle of the day,
and at once sent his name up to his father. Miss Scarborough was sitting
by her brother's bedside, and from time to time was reading to him a few
words. "Augustus!" he said, as soon as the servant had left the room.
"What does Augustus want with me? The last time he saw me he bade me die
out of hand if I wished to retrieve the injury I had done him."
"Do not think of that now, John," his sister said.
"As God is my judge, I will think of it to the last moment. Words such
as those spoken, by a son to his father, demand a little thought. Were I
to tell you that I did not think of them, would you not know that I was
a hypocrite?"
"You need not speak of them, John."
"Not unless he came here to harass my last moments. I strove to do very
much for him;--you know with what return. Mountjoy has been, at any rate,
honest and straightforward; and, considering all things, not lacking in
respect. I shall, at any rate, have some pleasure in letting Augustus
know the state of my mind."
"What shall I say to him?" his sister asked.
"Tell him that he had better go back to London. I have tried them both,
as few sons can be tried by their father, and I know them now. Tell him,
with my compliments, that it will be better for him not to see me. There
can be nothing pleasant said between us. I have no communication to make
to him which could in the least interest him."
But before night came the squire had been talked over, and had agreed to
see his son. "The interview will be easy enough for me," he had said,
"but I cannot imagine what he will get from me. But let him come as he
will."
Augustus spent much of the intervening time in discussing the matter
with his aunt. But not a word on the subject was spoken by him to
Mountjoy, whom he met at dinner, and with whom he spent the evening in
company with Mr. Merton. The two hours after dinner were melancholy
enough. The three adjourned to the smoking-room, and sat there almost
without conversation. A few words were said about the hunting, but
Mountjoy had not hunted this winter. There were a few also of greater
interest about the shooting. The shooting was of course still the
property of the old man, and in the early months had, without many words
spoken, become, as it were, an appanage of the condition of life to
which Augustus aspired; but of late Mountjoy had assumed the command.
"You found plenty of pheasants here, I suppose," Augustus remarked.
"Well, yes; not too many. I didn't trouble myself much about it. When I
saw a pheasant I shot it. I've been a little troubled in spirit, you
know."
"Gambling again, I heard."
"That didn't trouble me much. Merton can tell you that we've had a
sick-house."
"Yes, indeed," said Merton. "It hasn't seemed to be a time in which a
man would think very much of his pheasants."
"I don't know why," said Augustus, who was determined not to put up with
the rebuke implied in the doctor's words. After that there was nothing
more said between them till they all went to their separate apartments.
"Don't contradict him," his aunt said to him the next morning, "and if
he reprimands you, acknowledge that you have been wrong."
"That's hard, when I haven't been wrong."
"But so much depends upon it; and he is so stern. Of course, I wish well
for both of you. There is plenty enough,--plenty; if only you could agree
together."
"But the injustice of his treatment. Is it true that he now declares
Mountjoy to be the eldest son?"
"I believe so. I do not know, but I believe it."
"Think of what his conduct has been to me. And then you tell me that I
am to own that I have been wrong! In what have I been wrong?"
"He is your father, and I suppose you have said hard words to him."
"Did I rebuke him because he had fraudulently kept me for so many years
in the position of a younger son? Did I not forgive him that iniquity?"
"But he says you are a younger son."
"This last move," he said, with great passion, "has only been made in an
attempt to punish me, because I would not tell him that I was under a
world of obligations to him for simply declaring the truth as to my
birth. We cannot both be his eldest son."
"No, certainly, not both."
"At last he declared that I was his heir. If I did say hard words to
him, were they not justified?"
"Not to your father," said Miss Scarborough, shaking her head.
"That is your idea? How was I to abstain? Think what had been done to
me. Through my whole life he had deceived me, and had attempted to rob
me."
"But he says that he had intended to get the property for you."
"To get it! It was mine. According to what he said it was my own. He had
robbed me to give it to Mountjoy. Now he intends to rob me again in
order that Mountjoy may have it. He will leave such a kettle of fish
behind him, with all his manoeuvring, that neither of us will be the
better of Tretton."
Then he went to the squire. In spite of what had passed between him and
his aunt, he had thought deeply of his conduct to his father in the
past, and of the manner in which he would now carry himself. He was
aware that he had behaved,--not badly, for that he esteemed nothing,--but
most unwisely. When he had found himself to be the heir to Tretton he
had fancied himself to be almost the possessor, and had acted on the
instincts which on such a case would have been natural to him. To have
pardoned the man because he was his father, and then to have treated him
with insolent disdain, as some dying old man, almost entirely beneath
his notice, was what he felt the nature of the circumstances demanded.
And whether the story was true or false it would have been the same. He
had come at last to believe it to be true, and had therefore been the
more resolute; but, whether it were true or false, the old man had
struck his blow, and he must abide by it. Till the moment came in which
he had received that communication from Tretton, the idea had never
occurred to him that another disposition of the property might still be
within his father's power. But he had little known the old man's power,
or the fertility of his resources, or the extent of his malice. "After
what you have done you should cease to stay and disturb us," he had once
said, when his father had jokingly alluded to his own death. He had at
once repented, and had felt that such a speech had been iniquitous as
coming from a son. But his father had, at the moment, expressed no deep
animosity. Some sarcastic words had fallen from him of which Augustus
had not understood the bitterness. But he had remembered it since, and
was now not so much surprised at his father's wish to injure him as at
his power.
But could he have any such power? Mr. Grey, he knew, was on his side,
and Mr. Grey was a thorough lawyer. All the world was on his side,--all
the world having been instructed to think and to believe that Mr.
Scarborough had not been married till after Mountjoy was born. All the
world had been much surprised, and would be unwilling to encounter
another blow. Should he go into his father's room altogether penitent,
or should he hold up his head and justify himself?
One thing was brought home to him, by thinking, as a matter of which he
might be convinced. No penitence could now avail him anything. He had at
any rate by this time looked sufficiently into his father's character to
be sure that he would not forgive such an offence as had been his. Any
vice, any extravagance, almost any personal neglect, would have been
pardoned. "I have so brought him up," the father would have said, "and
the fault must be counted as my own." But his son had deliberately
expressed a wish for his father's death, and had expressed it in his
father's presence. He had shown not only neglect, which may arise at a
distance, and may not be absolutely intentional; but these words had
been said with the purpose of wounding, and were, and would be,
unpardonable. Augustus, as he went along the corridor to his father's
room, determined that he would at any rate not be penitent.
"Well, sir, how do you find yourself?" he said, walking in briskly and
putting out his hand to his father. The old man languidly gave his hand,
but only smiled. "I hear of you, though not from you, and they tell me
that you have not been quite so strong of late."
"I shall soon cease to stay and trouble you," said the squire, with
affected weakness, in a voice hardly above a whisper, using the very
words which Augustus had spoken.
"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been,
unfortunately, unpleasant."
"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have
thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with
you."
Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his
father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the
depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment
it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of
the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last
spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the
truer insight to his father's character.
"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done
much."
"Circumstances?"
"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."
"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."
"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper
feeling, I regret it."
"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no
hypocrisy, at any rate."
"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."
"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."
"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been
driven to say what I did not feel."
"Certainly not to me."
"I'm not here to beg pardon for any special fault, as I do not quite
know of what I am accused."
"Of nothing. There is no accusation at all."
"Nor what the punishment is to be. I have learned that you have left to
Mountjoy all the furniture in the house."
"Yes, poor boy!--when I found that you had turned him out."
"I never turned him out,--not till your house was open to receive him."
"You would not have wished him to go into the poor-house?"
"I did the very best for him. I kept him going when there was no one
else to give him a shilling."
"He must have had a bitter time," said the father. "I hope it may have
done him good."
"I think I behaved to him just as an elder brother should have done. He
was not particularly grateful, but that was not my fault."
"Still, I thought it best to leave him the old sticks about the place.
As he was to have the property, it was better that he should have the
sticks." As he said this he managed to turn himself round and look his
son full in the face. Such a look as it was! There was the gleam of
victory, and the glory of triumph, and the venom of malice. "You
wouldn't have them separated, would you?"
"I have heard of some farther trick of this kind."
"Just the ordinary way in which things ought to be allowed to run. Mr.
Grey, who is a very good man, persuaded me. No man ought to interfere
with the law. An attempt in that direction led to evil. Mountjoy is the
eldest son, you know."
"I know nothing of the kind."
"Oh dear, no! there is no question at all as to the date of my marriage
with your mother. We were married in quite a straightforward way at
Rummelsburg. When I wanted to save the property from those harpies, I
was surprised to find how easily I managed it. Grey was a little soft
there: an excellent man, but too credulous for a lawyer."
"I do not believe a word of it."
"You'll find it all go as naturally as possible when I have ceased to
stay and be troublesome. But one thing I must say in your favor."
"What do you mean?"
"I never could have managed it all unless you had consented to that
payment of the creditors. Indeed, I must say, that was chiefly your own
doing. When you first suggested it, I saw what a fine thing you were
contriving for your brother. I should think, after that, of leaving it
all so that you need not find out the truth when I am dead. I do think
I had so managed it that you would have had the property. Mountjoy, who
has some foolish feeling about his mother, and who is obstinate as a
pig, would have fought it out; but I had so contrived that you would
have had it. I had sealed up every document referring to the Rummelsburg
marriage, and had addressed them all to you. I couldn't have made it
safer, could I?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"You would have been enabled to destroy every scrap of the evidence
which will be wanted to prove your brother's legitimacy. Had I burned
the papers I could not have put them more beyond poor Mountjoy's reach.
Now they are quite safe in Mr. Grey's office; his clerk took them away
with him. I would not leave them here with Mountjoy because,--well,--you
might come, and he might be murdered!" Now Mr. Scarborough had had his
revenge.
"You think you have done your duty," said Augustus.
"I do not care two straws about doing my duty, young man." Here Mr.
Scarborough raised himself in part, and spoke in that strong voice which
was supposed to be so deleterious to him. "Or rather, in seeking my
duty, I look beyond the conventionalities of the world. I think that you
have behaved damnably, and that I have punished you. Because of
Mountjoy's weakness, because he had been knocked off his legs, I
endeavored to put you upon yours. You at once turned upon me, when you
thought the deed was done, and bade me go--and bury myself. You were a
little too quick in your desire to become the owner of Tretton Park at
once. I have stayed long enough to give some farther trouble. You will
not say, after this, that I am _non compos_, and unable to make a will.
You will find that, under mine, not one penny-piece, not one scrap of
property, will become yours. Mountjoy will take care of you, I do not
doubt. He must hate you, but will recognize you as his brother. I am not
so soft-hearted and will not recognize you as my son. Now you may go
away." So saying, he turned himself round to the wall, and refused to be
induced to utter another word. Augustus began to speak, but when he had
commenced his second sentence the old man rung his bell. "Mary," said he
to his sister, "will you have the goodness to get Augustus to go away? I
am very weak, and if he remains he will be the death of me. He can't get
anything by killing me at once; it is too late for that."
Then Augustus did leave the room, and before the night came had left
Tretton also. He presumed there was nothing for him to do there. One
word he did say to Mountjoy,--"You will understand, Mountjoy, that when
our father is dead Tretton will not become your property."
"I shall understand nothing of the kind," said Mountjoy "but I suppose
Mr. Grey will tell me what I am to do."