Chapter 40

VISITORS AT TRETTON.

It so happened that the three visitors who had been asked to Tretton all agreed to go on the same day. There was, indeed, no reason why Harry should delay his visit, and much why the other two should expedite theirs. Mr. Grey knew that the thing, if done at all, should be done at once; and Mountjoy, as he had agreed to accept his father's offer, could not put himself too quickly under the shelter of his father's roof. "You can have twenty pounds," Mr. Grey had said when the subject of the money was mooted. "Will that suffice?" Mountjoy had said that it would suffice amply, and then, returning to his brother's rooms, had waited there with what patience he possessed till he sallied forth to The Continental to get the best dinner which that restaurant could afford him. He was beginning to feel that his life was very sad in London, and to look forward to the glades of Tretton with some anticipation of rural delight.

He went down by the same train with Mr. Grey,--"a great grind," as Mountjoy called it, when Mr. Grey proposed a departure at ten o'clock. Harry followed so as to reach Tretton only in time for dinner. "If I may venture to advise you," said Mr. Grey in the train, "I should do in this matter whatever my father asked me." Hereupon Mountjoy frowned. "He is anxious to make some provision for you."

"I'm not grateful to my father, if you mean that."

"It is hard to say whether you should be grateful. But, from the first, he has done the best he could for you, according to his lights."

"You believe all this about my mother?"

"I do."

"I don't. That's the difference. And I don't think that Augustus believes it."

"The story is undoubtedly true."

"You must excuse me if I will not accept it."

"At any rate, you had parted with your share in the property."

"My share was the whole."

"After your father's death," said Mr. Grey; "and that was gone."

"We needn't discuss the property. What is it that he expects me to do now?"

"Simply to be kind in your manner to him, and to agree to what he says about the personal property. It is his intention, as far as I understand it, to leave you everything."

"He is very kind."

"I think he is."

"Only it would all have been mine if he had not cheated me of my birthright."

"Or Mr. Tyrrwhit's, and Mr. Hart's, and Mr. Spicer's."

"Mr. Tyrrwhit, and Mr. Hart, and Mr. Spicer could not have robbed me of my name. Let them have done what they would with their bonds, I should have been, at any rate, Scarborough of Tretton. My belief is that I need not blush for my mother. He has made it appear that I should do so. I can't forgive him because he gives me the chairs and tables."

"They will be worth thirty thousand pounds," said Mr. Grey.

"I can't forgive him."

The cloud sat very black upon Mountjoy Scarborough's face as he said this, and the blacker it sat the more Mr. Grey liked him. If something could be done to redeem from ruin a young man who so felt about his mother,--who so felt about his mother simply because she had been his mother,--it would be a good thing to do. Augustus had entertained no such feeling. He had said to Mr. Grey, as he had said also to his brother, that "he had not known the lady." When the facts as to the distribution of the property had been made known to him he had cared nothing for the injury done by the story to his mother's name. The story was too true. Mr. Grey knew that it was true; but he could not on that account do other than feel an intense desire to confer some benefit on Mountjoy Scarborough. He put his hand out affectionately and laid it on the other man's knee. "Your father has not long to live, Captain Scarborough."

"I suppose not."

"And he is at present anxious to make what reparation is in his power. What he can leave you will produce, let us say, fifteen hundred a year. Without a will from him you would have to live on your brother's bounty."

"By Heaven, no!" said Mountjoy, thinking of the pistol and the bullets.

"I see nothing else."

"I see, but I cannot explain."

"Do you not think that fifteen hundred a year would be better than nothing,--with a wife, let us say?" said Mr. Grey, beginning to introduce the one argument on which he believed so much must depend.

"With a wife?"

"Yes; with a wife."

"With what wife? A wife may be very well, but a wife must depend on who it is. Is there any one that you mean?"

"Not exactly any particular person," said the lawyer, lamely.

"Pshaw! What do I want with a wife? Do you mean to say that my father has told you that he intends to clog his legacy with the burden of a wife? I would not accept it with such a burden,--unless I could choose the wife myself. To tell the truth, there is a girl--"

"Your cousin?"

"Yes; my cousin. When I was well-to-do in the world I was taught to believe that I could have her. If she will be mine, Mr. Grey, I will renounce gambling altogether. If my father can manage that I will forgive him,--or will endeavor to do so. The property which he can leave me shall be settled altogether upon her. I will endeavor to reform myself, and so to live that no misfortune shall come upon her. If that is what you mean, say so."

"Well, not quite that."

"To no other marriage will I agree. That has been the dream of my life through all those moments of hot excitement and assured despair which I have endured. Her mother has always told me that it should be so, and she herself in former days did not deny it. Now you know it all. If my father wishes to see me married, Florence Mountjoy must be my wife." Then he sunk back on his seat, and nothing more was said between them till they had reached Tretton.

The father and son had not met each other since the day on which the former had told the latter the story of his birth. Since then Mountjoy had disappeared from the world, and for a few days his father had thought that he had been murdered. But now they met as they might have done had they seen each other a week ago. "Well, Mountjoy, how are you?" And, "How are you, sir?" Such were the greetings between them. And no others were spoken. In a few minutes the son was allowed to go and look after the rural joys he had anticipated, and the lawyer was left closeted with the squire.

Mr. Grey soon explained his proposition. Let the property be left to trustees who should realize from it what money it should fetch, and keep the money in their own hands, paying Mountjoy the income. "There could," he said, "be nothing better done, unless Mountjoy would agree to marry. He is attached, it seems, to his cousin," said Mr. Grey, "and he is unwilling at present to marry any one else."

"He can't marry her," said the squire.

"I do not know the circumstances."

"He can't marry her. She is engaged to the young man who will be here just now. I told you,--did I not?--that Harry Annesley is coming here. My son knows that he will be here to-day."

"Everybody knows the story of Mr. Annesley and the captain."

"They are to sit down to dinner together, and I trust they may not quarrel. The lady of whom you are speaking is engaged to young Annesley, and Mountjoy's suit in that direction is hopeless."

"Hopeless, you think?"

"Utterly hopeless. Your plan of providing him with a wife would be very good if it were feasible. I should be very glad to see him settled. But if he will marry no one but Florence Mountjoy he must remain unmarried. Augustus has had his hand in that business, and don't let us dabble in it." Then the squire gave the lawyer full instructions as to the will which was to be made. Mr. Grey and Mr. Bullfist were to be named as trustees, with instructions to sell everything which it would be in the squire's legal power to bequeath. The books, the gems, the furniture, both at Tretton and in London, the plate, the stock, the farm-produce, the pictures on the walls, and the wine in the cellars, were all named. He endeavored to persuade Mr. Grey to consent to a cutting of the timber, so that the value of it might be taken out of the pocket of the younger brother and put into that of the elder. But to this Mr. Grey would not assent. "There would be an air of persecution about it," he said, "and it mustn't be done." But to the general stripping of Tretton for the benefit of Mountjoy he gave a cordial agreement.

"I am not quite sure that I have done with Augustus as yet," said the squire. "I had made up my mind not to be put out by trifles; not to be vexed at a little. My treatment of my children has been such that, though I have ever intended to do them good, I must have seemed to each at different periods to have injured him. I have not, therefore, expected much from them. But I have received less than nothing from Augustus. It is possible that he may hear from me again." To this Mr. Grey said nothing, but he had taken his instructions about the drawing of the will.

Harry came down by the train in time for dinner. On the journey down he had been perplexed in his mind, thinking of various things. He did not quite understand why Mr. Scarborough had sent for him. His former intimacy had been with Augustus, and though there had been some cordiality of friendship shown by the old man to the son's companion, it had amounted to no more than might be expected from one who was notably good-natured. A great injury had been done to Harry, and he supposed that his visit must have some reference to that injury. He had been told in so many words that, come when he might, he would not find Augustus at Tretton. From this and from other signs he almost saw that there existed a quarrel between the squire and his son. Therefore he felt that something was to be said as to the state of his affairs at Buston.

But if, as the train drew near to Tretton, he was anxious as to his meeting with the squire, he was much more so as to the captain. The reader will remember all the circumstances under which they two had last seen each other Harry had been furiously attacked by Mountjoy, and had then left him sprawling,--dead, as some folks had said on the following day,--under the rail. His only crime had been that he was drunk. If the disinherited one would give him his hand and let by-gones be by-gones, he would do the same. He felt no personal animosity. But there was a difficulty.

As he was driven up to the door in a cab belonging to the squire there was Mountjoy, standing before the house. He too had thought of the difficulties, and had made up his mind that it would not do for him to meet his late foe without some few words intended for the making of peace. "I hope you are well, Mr. Annesley," he said, offering his hand as the other got out of the cab. "It may be as well that I should apologize at once for my conduct. I was at that moment considerably distressed, as you may have heard. I had been declared to be penniless, and to be nobody. The news had a little unmanned me, and I was beside myself."

"I quite understand it; quite understand it," said Annesley, giving his hand. "I am very glad to see you back again, and in your father's house." Then Mountjoy turned on his heel, and went through the hall, leaving Harry to the care of the butler. The captain thought that he had done enough, and that the affair in the street might now be regarded as a dream. Harry was taken up to shake hands with the old man, and in due time came down to dinner, where he met Mr. Grey and the young doctor. They were all very civil to him, and upon the whole, he spent a pleasant evening. On the next day, about noon, the squire sent for him. He had been told at breakfast that it was the squire's intention to see him in the middle of the day, and he had been unable, therefore, to join Mountjoy's shooting-party.

"Sit down, Mr. Annesley," said the old man. "You were surprised, no doubt, when you got my invitation?"

"Well, yes; perhaps so; but I thought it very kind."

"I meant to be kind; but still, it requires some explanation. You see, I am such an old cripple that I cannot give invitations like anybody else. Now you are here I must not eat and drink with you, and in order to say a few words to you I am obliged to keep you in the house till the doctor tells me I am strong enough to talk."

"I am glad to find you so much better than when I was here before."

"I don't know much about that. There will never be a 'much better' in my case. The people about me talk with the utmost unconcern of whether I can live one month or possibly two. Anything beyond that is quite out of the question." The squire took a pride in making the worst of his case, so that the people to whom he talked should marvel the more at his vitality. "But we won't mind my health now. It is true, I fear, that you have quarrelled with your uncle."

"It is quite true that he has quarrelled with me."

"I am afraid that that is more important. He means, if he can, to cut you out of the entail."

"He does not mean that I shall have the property if he can prevent it."

"I don't think very much of entails myself," said the squire. "If a man has a property he should be able to leave it as he pleases; or--or else he doesn't have it."

"That is what the law intends, I suppose," said Harry.

"Just so; but the law is such an old woman that she never knows how to express herself to any purpose. I haven't allowed the law to bind me. I dare say you know the story."

"About your two sons,--and the property? I think all the world knows the story."

"I suppose it has been talked about a little," said the squire, with a chuckle. "My object has been to prevent the law from handing over my property to the fraudulent claims which my son's creditors were enabled to make, and I have succeeded fairly well. On that head I have nothing to regret. Now your uncle is going to take other means."

"Yes; he is going to take means which, are, at any rate, lawful."

"But which will be tedious, and may not, perhaps, succeed. He is intending to have an heir of his own."

"That I believe is his purpose," said Harry.

"There is no reason why he shouldn't;--but he mayn't, you know."

"He is not married yet."

"No;--he is not married yet. And then he has also stopped the allowance he used to make you." Harry nodded assent. "Now, all this is a great shame."

"I think so."

"The poor gentleman has been awfully bamboozled."

"He is not so very old," said Harry, "I don't think he is more than fifty."

"But he is an old goose. You'll excuse me, I know. Augustus Scarborough got him up to London, and filled him full of lies."

"I am aware of it."

"And so am I aware of it. He has told him stories as to your conduct with Mountjoy which, added to some youthful indiscretions of your own--"

"It was simply because I didn't like to hear him read sermons."

"That was an indiscretion, as he had the power in his hands to do you an injury. Most men have got some little bit of petty tyranny in their hearts. I have had none." To this Harry could only bow. "I let my two boys do as they pleased, only wishing that they should lead happy lives. I never made them listen to sermons, or even to lectures. Probably I was wrong. Had I tyrannized over them, they would not have tyrannized over me as they have done. Now I'll tell you what it is that I propose to do. I will write to your uncle, or will get Mr. Merton to write for me, and will explain to him, as well as I can, the depth, and the blackness, and the cruelty,--the unfathomable, heathen cruelty, together with the falsehoods, the premeditated lies, and the general rascality on all subjects,--of my son Augustus. I will explain to him that, of all men I know, he is the least trustworthy. I will explain to him that, if led in a matter of such importance by Augustus Scarborough, he will be surely led astray. And I think that between us,--between Merton and me, that is,--we can concoct a letter that shall be efficacious. But I will get Mountjoy also to go and see him, and explain to him out of his own mouth what in truth occurred that night when he and you fell out in the streets. Mr. Prosper must be a more vindictive man than I take him to be in regard to sermons if he will hold out after that." Then Mr. Scarborough allowed him to go out, and if possible find the shooters somewhere about the park.