_ PART I CHAPTER VIII. HARRY ANNESLEY TAKES A WALK
"There was the devil to pay with my father last night after I went to him," said Scarborough to Harry next morning. "He now and then suffers agonies of pain, and it is the most difficult thing in the world to get him right again. But anything equal to his courage I never before met."
"How is he this morning?"
"Very weak and unable to exert himself. But I cannot say that he is otherwise much the worse. You won't see him this morning; but to-morrow you will, or next day. Don't you be shy about going to him when he sends for you. He likes to show the world that he can bear his sufferings with a light heart, and is ready to die to-morrow without a pang or a regret. Who was the fellow who sent for a fellow to let him see how a Christian could die? I can fancy my father doing the same thing, only there would be nothing about Christianity in the message. He would bid you come and see a pagan depart in peace, and would be very unhappy if he thought that your dinner would be disturbed by the ceremony. Now come down to breakfast, and then we'll go out shooting."
For three days Harry remained at Tretton, and ate and drank, and shot and rode, always in young Scarborough's company. During this time he did not see the old squire, and understood from Miss Scarborough's absence that he was still suffering from his late attack. The visit was to be prolonged for one other day, and he was told that on that day the squire would send for him. "I'm sick of these eternal partridges," said Augustus. "No man should ever shoot partridges two days running. Jones can go out by himself. He won't have to tip the game-keeper any more for an additional day, and so it will be all gain to him. You'll see my father in the afternoon after lunch, and we will go and take a walk now."
Harry started for his walk, and his companion immediately began again about the property. "I'm beginning to think," said he, "that it's nearly all up with the governor. These attacks come upon him worse and worse, and always leave him absolutely prostrate. Then he will do nothing to prevent them. To assure himself a week of life, he will not endure an hour of discomfort. It is plucky, you know."
"He is in all respects as brave a man as I have known."
"He sets God and man at absolute defiance, and always does it with the most profound courtesy. If he goes to the infernal regions he will insist upon being the last of the company to enter the door. And he will be prepared with something good-humored to say as soon as he has been ushered in. He was very much troubled about you yesterday."
"What has he to say of me?"
"Nothing in the least uncivil; but he has an idea in his head which nothing on earth will put out of it, and in which, but for your own word, I should be inclined to agree." Harry, when this was said, stood still on the mountain-side, and looked full into his companion's face. He felt at the moment that the idea had some reference to Mountjoy Scarborough and his disappearance. They were together on the heathy, unenclosed ground of Cannock Chase, and had already walked some ten or twelve miles. "He thinks you know where Mountjoy is."
"Why should I know?"
"Or at any rate that you have seen him since any of us. He professes not to care a straw for Mountjoy or his whereabouts, and declares himself under obligation to those who have contrived his departure. Nevertheless, he is curious."
"What have I to do with Mountjoy Scarborough?"
"That's just the question. What have you to do with him? He suggests that there have been words between you as to Florence, which has caused Mountjoy to vanish. I don't profess to explain anything beyond that,--nor, indeed, do I profess to agree with my father. But the odd thing is that Prodgers, the policeman, has the same thing running in his head."
"Because I have shown some anxiety about your brother in Scotland Yard."
"No doubt; Prodgers says that you've shown more anxiety than was to be expected from a mere acquaintance. I quite acknowledge that Prodgers is as thick-headed an idiot as you shall catch on a summer's day; but that's his opinion. For myself, I know your word too well to doubt it." Harry walked on in silence, thinking, or trying to think, what, on the spur of the moment, he had better do. He was minded to speak out the whole truth, and declare to himself that it was nothing to him what Augustus Scarborough might say or think. And there was present to him a feeling that his companion was dealing unfairly with him, and was endeavoring in some way to trap him and lead him into a difficulty. But he had made up his mind, as it were, not to know anything of Mountjoy Scarborough, and to let those five minutes in the street be as though they had never been. He had been brutally attacked, and had thought it best to say nothing on the subject. He would not allow his secret, such as it was, to be wormed out of him. Scarborough was endeavoring to extort from him that which he had resolved to conceal; and he determined at last that he would not become a puppet in his hands. "I don't see why you should care a straw about it," said Scarborough.
"Nor do I."
"At any rate you repeat your denial. It will be well that I should let my father know that he is mistaken, and also that ass Prodgers. Of course, with my father it is sheer curiosity. Indeed, if he thought that you were keeping Mountjoy under lock and key, he would only admire your dexterity in so preserving him. Any bold line of action that was contrary to the law recommends itself to his approbation. But Prodgers has a lurking idea that he should like to arrest you."
"What for?"
"Simply because he thinks you know something that he doesn't know. As he's a detective, that, in his mind, is quite enough for arresting any man. I may as well give him my assurance, then, that he is mistaken."
"Why should your assurance go for more than mine? Give him nothing of the kind."
"I may give him, at any rate, my assurance that I believe your word."
"If you do believe it, you can do so."
"But you repeat your assertion that you saw nothing of Mountjoy just before his disappearance?"
"This is an amount of cross-questioning which I do not take in good part, and to which I will not submit." Here Scarborough affected to laugh loudly. "I know nothing of your brother, and care almost as little. He has professed to admire a young lady to whom I am not indifferent, and has, I believe, expressed a wish to make her his wife. He is also her cousin, and the lady in question has, no doubt, been much interested about him. It is natural that she should be so."
"Quite natural--seeing that she has been engaged to him for twelve months."
"Of that I know nothing. But my interest about your brother has been because of her. You can explain all this about your brother if you please, or can let it alone. But for myself, I decline to answer any more questions. If Prodgers thinks that he can arrest me, let him come and try."
"The idea of your flying into a passion because I have endeavored to explain it all to you! At any rate I have your absolute denial, and that will enable me to deal both with my father and Prodgers." To this Harry made no answer, and the two young men walked back to Tretton together without many more words between them.
When Harry had been in the house about half an hour, and had already eaten his lunch, somewhat sulkily, a message came to him from Miss Scarborough requiring his presence. He went to her, and was told by her that Mr. Scarborough would now see him. He was aware that Mr. Scarborough never saw Septimus Jones, and that there was something peculiar in the sending of this message to him. Why should the man who was supposed to have but a few weeks to live be so anxious to see one who was comparatively a stranger to him? "I am so glad you have come in before dinner, Mr. Annesley, because my brother is so anxious to see you, and I am afraid you'll go too early in the morning." Then he followed her, and again found Mr. Scarborough on a couch in the same room to which he had been first introduced.
"I've had a sharp bout of it since I saw you before," said the sick man.
"So we heard, sir."
"There is no saying how many or rather how few bouts of this kind it will take to polish me off. But I think I am entitled to some little respite now. The apothecary from Tretton was here this morning, and I believe has done me just as much good as Sir William Brodrick. His charge will be ten shillings, while Sir William demanded three hundred pounds. But it would be mean to go out with no one but the Tretton apothecary to look after one."
"I suppose Sir William's knowledge has been of some service."
"His dexterity with his knife has been of more. So you and Augustus have been quarrelling about Mountjoy?"
"Not that I know of."
"He says so; and I believe his word on such a subject sooner than yours. You are likely to quarrel without knowing it, and he is not. He thinks that you know what has become of Mountjoy."
"Does he? Why should he think so, when I told him that I know nothing? I tell you that I know absolutely nothing. I am ignorant whether he is dead or alive."
"He is not dead," said the father.
"I suppose not; but I know nothing about him. Why your second son--"
"You mean my eldest according to law,--or rather my only son!"
"Why Augustus Scarborough," continued Harry Annesley, "should take upon himself to suspect that I know aught of his brother I cannot say. He has some cock-and-bull story about a policeman whom he professes to believe to be ignorant of his own business. This policeman, he says, is anxious to arrest me."
"To make you give evidence before a magistrate," said his father.
"He did not dare to tell me that he suspected me himself."
"There;--I knew you had quarrelled."
"I deny it altogether. I have not quarrelled with Augustus Scarborough. He is welcome to his suspicions if he chooses to entertain them. I should have liked him better if he had not brought me down to Tretton, so as to extract from me whatever he can. I shall be more guarded in future in speaking of Mountjoy Scarborough; but to you I give my positive assurance, which I do not doubt you will believe, that I know nothing respecting him." An honest indignation gleamed in his eyes as he spoke; but still there were the signs of that vacillation about his mouth which Florence had been able to read, but not to interpret.
"Yes," said the squire, after a pause, "I believe you. You haven't that kind of ingenuity which enables a man to tell a lie and stick to it. I have. It's a very great gift if a man be enabled to restrain his appetite for lying." Harry could only smile when he heard the squire's confession. "Only think how I have lied about Mountjoy; and how successful my lies might have been, but for his own folly!"
"People do judge you a little harshly now," said Harry.
"What's the odd's? I care nothing for their judgment; I endeavored to do justice to my own child, and very nearly did it. I was very nearly successful in rectifying the gross injustice of the world. Why should a little delay in a ceremony in which he had no voice have robbed him of his possessions? I determined that he should have Tretton, and I determined also to make it up to Augustus by denying myself the use of my own wealth. Things have gone wrongly not by my own folly. I could not prevent the mad career which Mountjoy has run; but do you think that I am ashamed because the world knows what I have done? Do you suppose my death-bed will be embittered by the remembrance that I have been a liar? Not in the least. I have done the best I could for my two sons, and in doing it have denied myself many advantages. How many a man would have spent his money on himself, thinking nothing of his boys, and then have gone to his grave with all the dignity of a steady Christian father! Of the two men I prefer myself; but I know that I have been a liar."
What was Harry Annesley to say in answer to such an address as this? There was the man, stretched on his bed before him, haggard, unshaved, pale, and grizzly, with a fire in his eyes, but weakness in his voice,--bold, defiant, self-satisfied, and yet not selfish. He had lived through his life with the one strong resolution of setting the law at defiance in reference to the distribution of his property; but chiefly because he had thought the law to be unjust. Then, when the accident of his eldest son's extravagance had fallen upon him, he had endeavored to save his second son, and had thought, without the slightest remorse, of the loss which was to fall on the creditors. He had done all this in such a manner that, as far as Harry knew, the law could not touch him, though all the world was aware of his iniquity. And now he lay boasting of what he had done. It was necessary that Harry should say something as he rose from his seat, and he lamely expressed a wish that Mr. Scarborough might quickly recover. "No, my dear fellow," said the squire; "men do not recover when they are brought to such straits as I am in. Nor do I wish it. Were I to live, Augustus would feel the second injustice to be quite intolerable. His mind is lost in amazement at what I had contemplated. And he feels that the matter can only be set right between him and fortune by my dying at once. If he were to understand that I were to live ten years longer, I think that he would either commit a murder or lose his senses."
"But there is enough for both of you," said Harry.
"There is no such word in the language as enough. An estate can have but one owner, and Augustus is anxious to be owner here. I do not blame him in the least. Why should he desire to spare a father's rights when that father showed himself so willing to sacrifice his? Good-bye, Annesley; I am sorry you are going, for I like to have some honest fellow to talk to. You are not to suppose that because I have done this thing I am indifferent to what men shall say of me. I wish them to think me good, though I have chosen to run counter to the prejudices of the world."
Then Harry escaped from the room, and spent the remaining evening with Augustus Scarborough and Septimus Jones. The conversation was devoted chiefly to the partridges and horses; and was carried on by Septimus with severity toward Harry, and by Scarborough with an extreme civility which was the more galling of the two. _