_ I saw my solicitor at once, but when I tried to write to Theobald, I
found it better to say I would run down and see him. I therefore
proposed this, asking him to meet me at the station, and hinting
that I must bring bad news about his son. I knew he would not get
my letter more than a couple of hours before I should see him, and
thought the short interval of suspense might break the shock of what
I had to say.
Never do I remember to have halted more between two opinions than on
my journey to Battersby upon this unhappy errand. When I thought of
the little sallow-faced lad whom I had remembered years before, of
the long and savage cruelty with which he had been treated in
childhood--cruelty none the less real for having been due to
ignorance and stupidity rather than to deliberate malice; of the
atmosphere of lying and self-laudatory hallucination in which he had
been brought up; of the readiness the boy had shown to love anything
that would be good enough to let him, and of how affection for his
parents, unless I am much mistaken, had only died in him because it
had been killed anew, again and again and again, each time that it
had tried to spring. When I thought of all this I felt as though,
if the matter had rested with me, I would have sentenced Theobald
and Christina to mental suffering even more severe than that which
was about to fall upon them. But on the other hand, when I thought
of Theobald's own childhood, of that dreadful old George Pontifex
his father, of John and Mrs John, and of his two sisters, when again
I thought of Christina's long years of hope deferred that maketh the
heart sick, before she was married, of the life she must have led at
Crampsford, and of the surroundings in the midst of which she and
her husband both lived at Battersby, I felt as though the wonder was
that misfortunes so persistent had not been followed by even graver
retribution.
Poor people! They had tried to keep their ignorance of the world
from themselves by calling it the pursuit of heavenly things, and
then shutting their eyes to anything that might give them trouble.
A son having been born to them they had shut his eyes also as far as
was practicable. Who could blame them? They had chapter and verse
for everything they had either done or left undone; there is no
better thumbed precedent than that for being a clergyman and a
clergyman's wife. In what respect had they differed from their
neighbours? How did their household differ from that of any other
clergyman of the better sort from one end of England to the other?
Why then should it have been upon them, of all people in the world,
that this tower of Siloam had fallen?
Surely it was the tower of Siloam that was naught rather than those
who stood under it; it was the system rather than the people that
was at fault. If Theobald and his wife had but known more of the
world and of the things that are therein, they would have done
little harm to anyone. Selfish they would have always been, but not
more so than may very well be pardoned, and not more than other
people would be. As it was, the case was hopeless; it would be no
use their even entering into their mothers' wombs and being born
again. They must not only be born again but they must be born again
each one of them of a new father and of a new mother and of a
different line of ancestry for many generations before their minds
could become supple enough to learn anew. The only thing to do with
them was to humour them and make the best of them till they died--
and be thankful when they did so.
Theobald got my letter as I had expected, and met me at the station
nearest to Battersby. As I walked back with him towards his own
house I broke the news to him as gently as I could. I pretended
that the whole thing was in great measure a mistake, and that though
Ernest no doubt had had intentions which he ought to have resisted,
he had not meant going anything like the length which Miss Maitland
supposed. I said we had felt how much appearances were against him,
and had not dared to set up this defence before the magistrate,
though we had no doubt about its being the true one.
Theobald acted with a readier and acuter moral sense than I had
given him credit for.
"I will have nothing more to do with him," he exclaimed promptly, "I
will never see his face again; do not let him write either to me or
to his mother; we know of no such person. Tell him you have seen
me, and that from this day forward I shall put him out of my mind as
though he had never been born. I have been a good father to him,
and his mother idolised him; selfishness and ingratitude have been
the only return we have ever had from him; my hope henceforth must
be in my remaining children."
I told him how Ernest's fellow curate had got hold of his money, and
hinted that he might very likely be penniless, or nearly so, on
leaving prison. Theobald did not seem displeased at this, but added
soon afterwards: "If this proves to be the case, tell him from me
that I will give him a hundred pounds if he will tell me through you
when he will have it paid, but tell him not to write and thank me,
and say that if he attempts to open up direct communication either
with his mother or myself, he shall not have a penny of the money."
Knowing what I knew, and having determined on violating Miss
Pontifex's instructions should the occasion arise, I did not think
Ernest would be any the worse for a complete estrangement from his
family, so I acquiesced more readily in what Theobald had proposed
than that gentleman may have expected.
Thinking it better that I should not see Christina, I left Theobald
near Battersby and walked back to the station. On my way I was
pleased to reflect that Ernest's father was less of a fool than I
had taken him to be, and had the greater hopes, therefore, that his
son's blunders might be due to postnatal, rather than congenital
misfortunes. Accidents which happen to a man before he is born, in
the persons of his ancestors, will, if he remembers them at all,
leave an indelible impression on him; they will have moulded his
character so that, do what he will, it is hardly possible for him to
escape their consequences. If a man is to enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven, he must do so, not only as a little child, but as a little
embryo, or rather as a little zoosperm--and not only this, but as
one that has come of zoosperms which have entered into the Kingdom
of Heaven before him for many generations. Accidents which occur
for the first time, and belong to the period since a man's last
birth, are not, as a general rule, so permanent in their effects,
though of course they may sometimes be so. At any rate, I was not
displeased at the view which Ernest's father took of the situation. _