Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 81

"But he says you are a younger son."

"This last move," he said, with great pa.s.sion, "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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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, circ.u.mstances had done much."

"Circ.u.mstances?"

"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."

"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circ.u.mstances."

"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 s.h.i.+lling."

"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 doc.u.ment 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 sc.r.a.p 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.