Kitabı oku: «Dorrien of Cranston», sayfa 11
“I don’t think you understand me, Mr Dorrien,” said the rector, rather stiffly. “I might have hoped you would have known me better than to suppose that I was reasoning otherwise than disinterestedly in this matter of your eventually possessing Cranston or not; or that the latter contingency would detract in my eyes from your eligibility to become my daughter’s husband, you being otherwise in a satisfactory position. What I did mean to convey was this. You are young now; all your feelings and aspirations are strong, and warm, and healthful, and you are capable of self-sacrifice; you dearly love my child. I can see that readily enough, although you are not one of the effusive order of lovers,” he went on, his tone softening, and a quiet, kindly smile gleaming in his eyes. “You would make any sacrifice for her – and for all this I honour you. But, as I said before, you are young. Well. You give up this inheritance, and you do so cheerfully. Middle age comes on, and you see what should have been yours in other hands. You are a stranger in the home of your ancestors – you have the cares and vexations – ay, and the disappointments of life crowding upon you, while another enjoys in ease and luxury your noble birthright, which has then passed away from you for ever. How will you feel then? Will you have the strength resolutely to bear up against this most mortifying contrast, to banish the thought of it far from you – or will it embitter – eventually perhaps crush the remainder of your existence? This is what I have been thinking of while we have been sitting here. Now have you thought of it?”
He laid his hand on the other’s arm with an affectionate gesture, and his dark eyes were full of sympathy as he bent his glance upon the young man’s face, awaiting the answer.
“I have thought of it, Dr Ingelow,” was the quiet reply. “I had already done so – had weighed the pros and cons most carefully before I spoke to you yesterday. And – ”
He stopped short. He was nearly giving the rector an inkling of the other insurmountable obstacle which stood in the way of reconciliation, and any material advantage it might bring with it, but with a natural distaste for discussing family matters with an outsider – however sympathetic – he forebore. Had he not done so, it is possible that the answer to his wishes might have been different; as it was, Dr Ingelow would not give up the notion that the quarrel between Roland and his father, however grave, was yet capable of being healed, and it was not for him, a Christian priest, irrespective of other considerations, to be the means of widening the breach.
“Well now, Dorrien,” he went on, after pausing to allow the other to continue the remark if he wished, “you must see yourself in what an extremely difficult position I am placed. How can I allow my child to marry into a family which positively refuses to receive her? I cannot do so, I fear, with any consideration for our own self-respect. Then, apart from that, you are man of the world enough to know that nothing remains private for long, and that this family quarrel of yours will soon be in everybody’s mouth. Now, I ask you, how can I and mine accept the position of arch-mischief-makers, feud fomenters, schemers – call it what you will – in which common consent will place us when it becomes known how you have renounced your brilliant worldly prospects for Olive’s sake? Put yourself into my place for a moment – that may bring it home to you. No, Dorrien, surely you must see that this is a position we cannot consent to occupy, and, honoured as we are by your proposal, I fear we must pain you by declining it – for the present, at any rate.”
Roland did not answer at once. In the rector’s decided tones he felt that his fate was sealed. There was no getting over this opposition, and now, day by day, an insurmountable barrier would rise between him and his love. The room seemed to go round with him – the heavily-bound, solemn-looking volumes, the carved chairs, the still, white Christ upon the black cross in the niche, all passed in succession before his eyes.
“And yet I had thought, Dr Ingelow,” he said at last, and his voice was thick and unsteady, “that you, if any man, would be above mere worldly considerations, when the life’s happiness of two people was in the balance.”
“My dear boy, don’t – pray don’t talk in that awfully desponding tone,” said the rector, moved to the heart by the utter dejection set forth upon the other’s countenance. “Now, listen,” and going over to him he placed his hands upon his shoulders, in heart-felt, sympathetic touch. “Wait a little while, then do your best to make up this lamentable difference – who knows but what you may succeed far more readily than you think? Then you shall have my hearty consent.”
“That will be never,” came the reply, quiet, but decided. “The thing is impossible. So I suppose you will tell me that it’s a case of resigning oneself to the will of Providence,” he continued in a tone of indescribable bitterness, and with an approach to a sneer.
The other made no reply, and for some moments there was silence. There was not a spark of anger or resentment in the priest’s heart at the implied scoff, and the compassion in his countenance deepened as he gazed upon the man before him, plunged in the depths of disappointment. He was no mean judge of character, and he had seen much in Roland Dorrien to like and admire – yet he felt sure that the course he himself had adopted in the present instance was the right – in fact, the only safe one.
And Roland himself? As he sat there he was going through a mighty struggle. He had tried fair means and failed, now he would be justified in employing foul, said the tempter. If he could induce Olive surreptitiously to link her lot with his, why then, when the step was irremediable, her father would soon forgive her. The rector was the very last man to bear rancour, especially towards his favourite child. He would soon come round, and then how happy they would all be! The end in this case would amply justify the means, and then – was not all fair in love and war? No, it was not. Roland Dorrien had a code of honour of his own. Had Dr Ingelow been such a man as his own father, for instance, he would have felt abundantly justified in throwing all scruple to the winds, but now he could not do it. He had sat at this man’s table and been treated by him in every respect as a trusted friend. His doors had ever been open to him to come and go as he listed, he had been admitted unreservedly and welcomed in this family circle at a time when in his own home he was a stranger. Months had passed in this pleasant, trustful intimacy, and now he felt that he would rather die than betray the confidence of this kindly, open-hearted friend, for whom, in spite of what had happened, he felt no whit less of warm regard. It would be a mean and shabby trick, the very thought of which he would strive to put far from him.
“Forgive me,” he said at length. “I am an unmannerly brute to talk like that. A cad, in fact.”
“Roland, my dear boy,” answered the rector in his most affectionate tone, casting all ceremony to the winds. “Believe me, I have already forgotten it, whatever it was. Now try and face your trouble bravely – you are not alone in it, remember. And, Roland, you will not – not attempt to see Olive alone until – at any rate until I have spoken to her. You are too honourable for that, I know.”
“I will not. But, Dr Ingelow, I cannot promise to give her up altogether. It is only fair to tell you that.”
The rector shook his head sadly.
“I am afraid you must bring yourself to face facts,” he replied, as they clasped hands. “Good-bye. We need not look upon each other as enemies on account of this, need we?” he added, laying an affectionate, detaining hand on the other’s shoulder. “Good-bye for the present – and, God bless you!”
Chapter Twenty.
Darker Still
“Things are never so bad but that they might be worse,” is a clap-trap disguised beneath the gold leaf of philosophy. When a man’s leg has to come off – without chloroform – it doesn’t make the impending “bad quarter of an hour” a bit less redoubtable to impress upon him the indisputable fact that he might have had to lose an arm as well.
When Roland awoke the next morning – he had engaged a room in the principal inn at Wandsborough – it seemed as if the outlook before him was about as black as it could be. He had made an enormous sacrifice for love, and all in vain; the fruition of that love was denied him. Wrapped in gloomy reflections, he hardly noticed a letter lying beside his bed. It had come the previous evening, but he had chucked it aside as not worth bothering about. Now he took it up and carelessly tore it open. Suddenly an alarming change came over his features, an awful, rigid, grey look, as if he had been suddenly turned to stone. This is what he read:
“My Dear Dorrien —
“I am rather afraid that I shall be the first to make known some confoundedly bad news. In a word the Tynnestop Bank has ‘gone,’ and the smash is complete. Now the question is, have you got rid of those shares of yours or not – you know we were talking about it when you were up here? If not, I’m deuced sorry for you, for I fear there’s no chance – the smash is too thorough, and it’s supposed they won’t pay sixpence in the pound. Bang they went! without a symptom of warning, and everyone’s asking how on earth it was managed so quietly. If you think it’ll be any good, run up here and talk things over.
“Believe me, old fellow, —“Yours, etc, etc,“John Venn.”
“P.S. – I’m bitten myself to a small amount – trusteeship – damned fool’s trade. But it’s you shareholders who’ll be most heavily shot, I’m afraid. I send a couple of papers with an account of the crash – in case you haven’t seen it.”
Again and again he read through the letter, which had been addressed to the rector’s care, till Venn’s large, business-like calligraphy seemed burnt into his brain; then he tore open the newspapers. The affair was plain enough. The Bank was an unlimited concern, and every farthing he had in the world except his last half-yearly dividend was invested in its shares, and now it had fallen with a crash. Roland Dorrien was a ruined man.
A groan escaped his dry, set lips.
“Good God! Nothing like piling it up,” he muttered. “If this isn’t a day full of happiness! Well, this must have happened before yesterday morning, otherwise I might be induced to believe in the efficacy of curses, and that my very affectionate parent’s influence with the Devil stands higher than mine; but it came about too early for that to have anything to do with it.”
He laughed – a horrible, blood-curdling mockery of a laugh – as the thought crossed his mind that he might have occasion to decide whether, under all the circumstances, life was really worth living any longer.
Two hours later, and he is on his way to London. Every familiar landmark is out of eight, but imagination carries him back. Had he known what fate held in store for him, was it possible that that stormy interview might never have taken place? The temptation would have been great. Yesterday, at that hour, life had looked very fair, very promising to him, and now, in less than twenty-four hours, he had lost his inheritance – his love – and his means of existence.
And now how light seem the first obstructions which lay in his road yesterday, compared with this last terrible disaster! His renunciation of his birthright – the rector’s opposition – now appear to him as very trifles. The first he had made up his mind to – the second could in time have been got over – but now? Love was a luxury he could not afford to indulge in – even life itself must henceforth be dragged out in labour and sorrow and desolation, that is, should he ultimately decide that it is worth dragging on at all on such terms. For now, of course, he must give up Olive, release her from all in the shape of a promise or understanding. It might be years and years before he could even keep himself decently, how then could he in honour hold her bound to him, condemn her to spend the best and brightest years of her life in weary waiting; and for what? For a broken, disappointed man, utterly without prospects and without hopes. Would she grieve for him? At first she would suffer – suffer acutely, he knew; but her bright, sunny spirits would carry her through, and she would – well, in time, forget him. And the unfortunate man almost groaned aloud as he leaned in the corner of the railway carriage, his eyes strained and distended upon the ceaseless downpour without, and the sodden landscape lying beneath its lowering veil of ashen cloud.
There is as a rule something exasperating about the way in which our friends take our misfortunes. If we are of a morbidly sensitive disposition they affect a facial elongation and a tone of dismal sympathy; if, on the other hand, we are accustomed to present a careless front to the world, they overwhelm us with a cheerful light-heartedness which strikes us as brutally callous – as though, indeed, we could look for anything else in a thoroughly self-seeking world. “Every man for himself, and devil take the hindermost.” Are you in the latter category? “Awfully sorry, my dear fellow – only wish I could help you – but – well, perhaps you will find ranking among His Satanic Majesty’s acquisitions not quite such an uncomfortable berth as you think – and then, you know, you’re sure to get out of it soon – something’s sure to turn up. Well – ta-ta – old chap, sorry I can’t wait – ” And the world rolls on.
Roland was conscious of a latent feeling of resentment as he noted the comfortable and even light-hearted expression on his friend’s face. “Looks as if the fellow hadn’t a care in the world, damn it,” was his mental comment.
“Hallo, Dorrien! I’m deuced glad to see you, but awfully sorry I can’t give you any cheering news,” began the other. “I know you’re the sort of fellow who wouldn’t thank me for trying to make things out promising when they’re bad as bad can be – and that’s just what I’m afraid they are. You see, the mischief of it is that it’s an unlimited concern.”
“Yes,” assented Roland drearily.
“By the way, I got your line this morning and would have met you at the train, but I’ve had an awfully busy day of it. I’ve been going into your affair too; you know, I do a lot in the way of share-broking.”
“And it’s all up?”
“It is. You would hardly credit the widespread ruin a smash of this kind involves. Why, there are people who were rolling in wealth yesterday, who to-morrow will be destitute beggars. And there’s no foretelling the extent of the calls which will be made on the shareholders. But I say though, Dorrien, don’t be so confoundedly down in the mouth, man. It’s rough on you to lose a snug little income, but then you’ve got Cranston to fall back upon. By Jove! I wouldn’t mind changing shoes with you this very day. Why, when you’re doing Squire of Cranston you’ll laugh at all this.”
He laughed now – a hollow mockery of a laugh, like a smile forced to the face of a galvanised corpse.
“Don’t you remember my telling you that Cranston wasn’t entailed?” he said abruptly.
“Yes, but hang it! it’ll come to the same thing in the end. And now your governor will – ”
” – See me to the devil with all the pleasure in life,” was the sneering reply. “Why, man, we had the most infernal shindy yesterday ever kicked up between two full-blown lunatics. So now you may perhaps realise the exceeding roseate hue of my prospects in life.”
Venn gave vent to a whistle and looked grave.
“Oh, but – he’ll come round in time,” he began lamely.
“Deuce a bit. I tell you the brake of my coach has given way and that successful vehicle is starting down hill now – off to the devil as hard as it can lick. Even that mythical old humbug, Job, had his afflictions come upon him by relays; mine came all in one day, as you’d readily see, if you knew the facts.”
Chapter Twenty One.
Johnston at Fault
Eustace Ingelow sat in the summer-house at the back of the Rectory garden smoking his after-breakfast pipe, and with him his youngest sister, Sophie, doing some needlework.
They were discussing a letter which the former had received from the absent Roland, also an eventuality concerning Johnston, the Cranston gardener, and the bite he had received from Roy.
“Do you think that abominable fellow really intends to bring an action against him?” the girl was saying.
“He does. He says he’s lamed for life. It’s an arrant lie, of course, on a par with that one about going into the coach-house to fetch a broom and Roy flying at him. However, he won’t get Dorrien’s whereabouts out of me, and I’m rather certain no one else knows it.”
The fact was, that Johnston, seeing a good opportunity, in the mishap which had befallen him, of being revenged on Roy and his master, and withal extracting from the latter’s pocket considerable compensation, had complained to his employer in the first instance. But to his surprise the General curtly and fiercely refused to listen to him, and the man, seeing that another word on the subject would gravely imperil his place, and not to be baulked, resolved to bring an action for damages against the dethroned heir.
Sophie plied her needle thoughtfully for a few moments. Then she looked up.
“Eusty, does Ro – er – Mr Dorrien, say anything about coming back?”
“N-no. He’s sure to be back though, soon. But, I say, you’d better apply to Olive for information on that score.”
The girl shook her golden head sadly.
“Eusty, can you keep a secret? Because, if you can – I’ll tell you one. Well then, I think there’s something wrong – in the first place, from odds and ends I’ve heard out of doors, in the next – er – well – one needn’t look far from home. And dad had a letter from Mr Dorrien this morning, and how awfully quiet he was all breakfast time?”
“There was a deuce of a row between Dorrien and his cantankerous old reprobate of an ancestor – he let out as much as that to me,” said Eustace. “Poor old chap – I hope he’ll turn up again soon.”
“So do I,” echoed the girl. “We don’t see many nice people here – at least not nice men – and he always was such fun.”
“Rather. Especially when you got him quietly over a weed. The quaint, dry sentiments of the fellow were enough to make a cat perish with laughter. Poor old Dorrien! I hope we shall soon have him back as jolly as ever. Hallo! – By George, there’s that rascal Johnston himself. Seedy looking cad with him – perhaps an attorney.”
They peered through the thick foliage of the arbour, and approaching from the other end of the gravel walk was the Cranston gardener and his companion, whom a servant was apparently directing towards their retreat.
“By Jove!” chuckled Eustace. “Now for some fun. Tell you what, Sophie. I’ll read them Dorrien’s postscript.”
“Better not,” objected his more prudent sister. “No, dear, don’t. There’d only be a row, and I’m so frightened of rows.”
“Pooh! I’d chuck the pair of ’em through the hedge.”
“And they’d summon you, and dad would be annoyed, and there’d be no end of bother. Now, Eusty, be a good boy, won’t you, and – ” But she had no time for further remonstrance, for the two men had by this time reached the arbour, and stood looking sheepish and awkward, as if each expected the other to begin.
“Ah! good day, Johnston. Anything I can do for you? But – who’s your friend?” said Eustace with a careless nod.
“I ask yer pardon, sir, and the young leddy’s, for intruding, but I thought ye might a’ heard from Mr Roland. And ye said if ye did ye’d kindly let me know.” This was a fact. Eustace, intending to “draw” the Scot, had promised him that much.
“Yes?”
“And – have ye, sir?”
“Yes.”
And Eustace, taking out his pouch, proceeded with the utmost coolness to refill and light his pipe.
“And, if I might make so bold, sir, what does he say?” asked the man anxiously.
“Well, to be candid with you, Johnston, I think you’ll get no change out of him at all. He won’t even listen to your idea.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the stranger, in response to an appealing look from his companion – “begging your pardon, sir, but wouldn’t it be much better that Mr Dorrien should come to some understanding with my friend, here, instead of compelling him to go to law? Now, wouldn’t it?”
“Begging yours – but I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance,” replied Eustace, eyeing the speaker with perfect coolness. “Is this your legal adviser, Johnston?”
“Eh, no, sir. It’s just my cousin, who knows the law as well as most lawyers, and – ”
“Well, it can’t possibly be his business, and I shall decline to discuss it with him,” decisively went on Eustace, who had a dim recollection of having seen the seedy, ferret-nosed individual before him in the office of a Battisford attorney, where he occupied a position, half clerk, half errand-runner. “And for the matter of that, Johnston, it’s none of mine either, and I may as well tell you so. So I’m afraid I can’t help you any further.”
“And ye won’t give me his address?”
“Whose?”
“Meester Dorrien’s.”
“No.”
“But perhaps we can mak’ ye,” answered Johnston, whose tone was gradually becoming less respectful and more threatening.
Eustace turned slightly in his chair – his tall, fine frame the picture of listless ease, and cool self-possession in every feature of his handsome face.
“Eh? I didn’t quite catch?” he said suavely, merely lifting an eye-brow.
The Cranston gardener, who had obtained his position of awe among the little community of his colleagues and dependents by mere bluster and bullying, was an arrant coward at heart, and simply dared not repeat his remarks.
“But, my dear sir,” began the other insinuatingly, cutting him short in the middle of a whining speech about poor men being denied their rights – “my dear sir, don’t you see – ”
“I’m afraid not,” was the imperturbable reply. “At least I see this – that no good will come of discussing the concern any further. But – eh – by the way, Johnston, you didn’t poke at the dog at all – with a stick, for instance, did you?”
The man’s face changed colour, and Eustace, who was watching him narrowly, detected it at once. It was only a random shot, but it had evidently hit the mark.
“Ah! well,” he went on carelessly, “in any case it doesn’t much matter. And now, I suppose, we have nothing further to discuss. So I’ll say good-day – ”
Both men stood irresolute for a moment. Then they turned to go.
“Aweel, sir, it’s a queer warrld,” said Johnston, “and, of course, we must just help each other. An’ if ever I get a chance o’ doing you a good turn I hope I’ll do it.”
“That I’m sure you will, Johnston,” carelessly assented Eustace, fully alive to the irony and veiled vow of vengeance in this speech, and hardly able to contain his mirth, so comic was the expression of baffled malice which the man strove to conceal. “Well, good-day, again!”
“Eusty,” said his sister, when they were out of earshot. “You’d better look out. I’m sure that horrid man will have his revenge, somehow.”
“Pooh! A couple of mean-spirited cads. For two pins I’d have chucked the pair of ’em into the fish-pond. The impudence of the dogs! The very sight of them evoked in me what old Medlicott defined in his sermon the other night as ‘a surging of the worst passions of our fallen human nature.’”
All the same he was destined to learn – and that before very long – that the Scotchman’s significant promise might not prove so harmless as he imagined.
While Eustace was making merry over his friend’s letter, the rector was cogitating over a very different style of communication, though from the same source. In it the writer set forth briefly and circumstantially the completeness of his own ruin, adding, that as a beggar and penniless, he had now no alternative but to take as final the answer which the rector had given on the occasion of their last meeting. There was one thing more – an enclosure directed to Olive, and this the writer ventured to hope might be handed to her. He had purposely left the envelope open in case Dr Ingelow should prefer to peruse its contents, but in any event he trusted it might be delivered, as it was the last communication that would pass between them. It was characteristic of the old priest’s honourable and generous nature, that his first act was to fasten down the flap of the envelope then and there.
Now the letter was curt, stiff and constrained in wording, but its recipient could “read between the lines.” He knew the world thoroughly, and his insight into that most complex of machinery, the human heart, was all but exhaustive, and now, as he sat with the open letter before him, he could gauge with wonderful exactitude the state of mind of its unfortunate writer. Its very curtness was the outcome of a studied expression of feeling, as of one who should nerve himself to the numbing consciousness of sudden and overwhelming ruin. This man had lost all which made life valuable to him. It had fallen from him, one might say, in a single day. How would he bear it?
“Poor fellow – poor fellow! He is ruined, indeed?” broke from the old priest’s lips, as he turned over the whole situation in his mind. “What will become of him?”
He thought of the mutual liking that had sprung up between them – of their many pleasant interchanges of ideas and experiences – their reminiscences of the Great Wild West, gone over together many a time during the cheerful evening meal – and how these things had carried him back to the life and spirit of adventure of his own youth. He thought of the unfortunate man now plunged in ruin and despair, and the picture thus conjured up moved and distressed him more than he cared to own. During the few months of their acquaintance he had accurately read Roland Dorrien’s character, and now felt pretty certain that it was not of the sort to gain by such a blow as this last. He remembered remorsefully the dark, reckless face as he had last seen it, full of impatience, resentment and stormy passions, and knew too well that the owner of that face was not the man to accept misfortune as a thing to rise superior to and over-rule to his own ultimate good. No! for him he feared the worst.
Then his eye fell once more upon the enclosure. He took it up thoughtfully. It was not strange that the writer should have sent it to him first instead of forwarding it direct by post, but the act was highly creditable to Dorrien’s sense of honour. He conveyed a covert hint, too, in the letter to himself that they would probably never meet again. It was all terribly sad, and now with characteristic scrupulosity the rector blamed himself severely for unnecessary harshness. Yes, he had been hard and unfeeling in that interview. The poor fellow was now overwhelmed in the bitterness of his ruin, to an extent which he was too proud to show, and desperate. He was a man of little or no religion, consequently a man without hope – and thus thinking, a warm wave of pity swept over the old priest’s heart. Could nothing be done for this lonely, uncared-for wanderer – nothing to raise him from where he had gone down beneath the rising tide of adverse fortune? Yes – it could and it should. He would go himself and seek him out and convey to him that he was not without friends; nor would he confine himself only to words of sympathy and friendship, but would think what offer of material aid he could make. Ah! but – would it be accepted? The man was proud. A man who had deliberately put away such a position as Roland Dorrien had done would be difficult to deal with. And for the first time it struck him that he had made far too light of that affair, and the conviction began to dawn upon him, that come what might, do reconciliation would ever take place now between General Dorrien and his son. And what would become of the latter? Again and again the rector’s sensitive conscience smote him. Had he been a little less decisive in refusing his consent – had he left the other some ground for hope, it might be the saving of him now – might act as an incentive to him to rise above his troubles. Yes – he must see what could be done, and that without loss of time.
Then, taking the now sealed letter, he went upstairs to find Olive.
“Something for you, darling,” he said in his tenderest tone.
“Yes, father. What is it? Oh!”
Her face paled and her hand trembled slightly as she caught sight of the well-known writing, and there was a terrible air of wistfulness in her eyes. Ever since the day her father had told her – with all the consideration and gentleness he could command, as well as with decision – that he could not consent to anything between Roland Dorrien and herself, and had so carefully reasoned out the matter that she could not in her inmost heart accuse him of harshness or injustice – ever since the day her lover had left the place suddenly and without a word of explanation, Olive had been as one metamorphosed. Her brightness and unquenchable flow of spirits had left her; she seldom smiled, never laughed, and spoke but little.
Now she gained her room, and having locked herself in tore open the letter. It consisted of several sheets, closely written, and as she read on, the girl’s eyes were dimmed with tears, and at last she could go no further – great, choking, heart-broken sobs were all that she was conscious of. It was a strange letter – there was something solemn and awe-inspiring about it, for it was written as a man might write when certain that he has but a few hours to live, and yet every now and then, it would be traversed by a gleam of humour that was heart-rending, so obvious was it that this was brought in only when the anguish of the writer became too unbearable. Yet there was not a trace of self-pity in the letter from beginning to end. It was all on her account that his misgivings were set forth. As for himself, well, he took a lot of killing, and supposed he must endure things as they were – and, for her, Time might work wonders, and she might live to be happy yet, far happier than she could ever be if tied to a thoroughly broken and disappointed man like himself; and so her father’s decision was right after all. His day was done; ruin had come upon him, out of which nothing could save him, and if she could learn to forget him, all the better for herself, for henceforth to all who had ever known him he must be as one dead.
