Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 26

"It depends very much on yourself, Mr. Scarborough. I don't think he can come very often, but you can make the distances long or short. You should attend to no business."

"That is absolute rubbish."

"Nevertheless, it is my duty to say so. Whatever arrangements may be required, they should be made by others. Of course, if you do as you have done this morning, I can suggest some little relief. I can give you tonics and increase the amount; but I cannot resist the evil which you yourself do yourself."

"I understand all about it."

"You will kill yourself if you go on."

"I don't mean to go on any farther,--not as I have done to-day; but as to giving up business, that is rubbish. I have got my property to manage, and I mean to manage it myself as long as I live. Unfortunately, there have been accidents which make the management a little rough at times. I have had one of the rough moments to-day, but they shall not be repeated. I give you my word for that. But do not talk to me about giving up my business. Now I'll take your tonics, and then would you have the kindness to ask my sister to come to me?"

Miss Scarborough, who was always in waiting on her brother, was at once in the room. "Martha," he said, "where is Augustus?"

"I think he has gone out."

"And where is Mr. Septimus Jones?"

"He is with him, John. The two are always together."

"You would not mind giving my compliments to Mr. Jones, and telling him that his bedroom is wanted?"

"His bedroom wanted! There are lots of bedrooms, and n.o.body to occupy them."

"It's a hint that I want him to go; he'd understand that."

"Would it not be better to tell Augustus?" asked the lady, doubting much her power to carry out the instructions given to her.

"He would tell Augustus. It is not, you see, any objection I have to Mr.

Jones. I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. He is a most agreeable young man, I'm sure; but I do not care to entertain an agreeable young man without having a word to say on the subject.

Augustus does not think it worth his while even to speak to me about him. Of course, when I am gone, in a month or so,--perhaps a week or two,--he can do as he pleases."

"Don't, John!"

"But it is so. While I live I am master at least of this house. I cannot see Mr. Jones, and I do not wish to have another quarrel with Augustus.

Mr. Merton says that every time I get angry it gives Sir William another chance with the knife. I thought that perhaps you could do it." Then Miss Scarborough promised that she would do it, and, having her brother's health very much at heart, she did do it. Augustus stood smiling while the message was, in fact, conveyed to him, but he made no answer. When the lady had done he bobbed his head to signify that he acknowledged the receipt of it, and the lady retired.

"I have got my walking-papers," he said to Septimus Jones ten minutes afterward.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you? Then you must be very thick-headed. My father has sent me word that you are to be turned out. Of course he means it for me. He does not wish to give me the power of saying that he sent me away from the house,--me, whom he has so long endeavored to rob,--me, to whom he owes so much for taking no steps to punish his fraud. And he knows that I can take none, because he is on his death-bed."

"But you couldn't, could you, if he were--were anywhere else?"

"Couldn't I? That's all you know about it. Understand, however, that I shall start to-morrow morning, and unless you like to remain here on a visit to him, you had better go with me." Mr. Jones signified his compliance with the hint, and so Miss Scarborough had done her work.

Mr. Scarborough, when thus left alone, spent his time chiefly in thinking of the condition of his sons. His eldest son, Mountjoy, who had ever been his favorite, whom as a little boy he had spoiled by every means in his power, was a ruined man. His debts had all been paid, except the money due to the money-lenders. But he was not the less a ruined man. Where he was at this moment his father did not know. All the world knew the injustice of which he had been guilty on his boy's behalf, and all the world knew the failure of the endeavor. And now he had made a great and a successful effort to give back to his legitimate heir all the property. But in return the second son only desired his death, and almost told him so to his face. He had been proud of Augustus as a lad, but he had never loved him as he had loved Mountjoy. Now he knew that he and Augustus must henceforward be enemies. Never for a moment did he think of giving up his power over the estate as long as the estate should still be his. Though it should be but for a month, though it should be but for a week, he would hold his own. Such was the nature of the man, and when he swallowed Mr. Merton's tonics he did so more with the idea of keeping the property out of his son's hands than of preserving his own life. According to his view, he had done very much for Augustus, and this was the return which he received!

And in truth he had done much for Augustus. For years past it had been his object to leave to his second son as much as would come to his first. He had continued to put money by for him, instead of spending his income on himself.

Of this Mr. Grey had known much, but had said nothing when he was speaking those severe words which Mr. Scarborough had always contrived to receive with laughter. But he had felt their injustice, though he had himself ridiculed the idea of law. There had been the two sons, both born from the same mother, and he had willed that they should be both rich men, living among the foremost of their fellowmen, and the circ.u.mstances of the property would have helped him. The income from year to year went on increasing.

The water-mills of Tretton and the town of Tretton had grown and been expanded within his domain, and the management of the sales in Mr.

Grey's hands had been judicious. The revenues were double now what they had been when Mr. Scarborough first inherited it. It was all, no doubt, entailed, but for twenty years he had enjoyed the power of acc.u.mulating a sum of money for his second son's sake,--or would have enjoyed it, had not the acc.u.mulation been taken from him to pay Mountjoy's debts. It was in vain that he attempted to make Mountjoy responsible for the money.

Mountjoy's debts, and irregularities, and gambling went on, till Mr.

Scarborough found himself bound to dethrone the illegitimate son, and to place the legitimate in his proper position.

In doing the deed he had not suffered much, though the circ.u.mstances which had led to the doing of it had been full of pain. There had been an actual pleasure to him in thus showing himself to be superior to the conventionalities of the world. There was Augustus still ready to occupy the position to which he had in truth been born. And at the moment Mountjoy had gone--he knew not where. There had been gambling debts which, coming as they did after many others, he had refused to pay. He himself was dying at the moment, as he thought. It would be better for him to take up with Augustus. Mountjoy he must leave to his fate. For such a son, so reckless, so incurable, so hopeless, it was impossible that anything farther should be done. He would at least enjoy the power of leaving those wretched creditors without their money. There would be some triumph, some consolation, in that. So he had done, and now his heir turned against him!

It was very bitter to him, as he lay thinking of it all. He was a man who was from his const.i.tution and heart capable of making great sacrifices for those he loved. He had a most thorough contempt for the character of an honest man. He did not believe in honesty, but only in mock honesty. And yet he would speak of an honest man with admiration, meaning something altogether different from the honesty of which men ordinarily spoke. The usual honesty of the world was with him all pretence, or, if not, a.s.sumed for the sake of the character it would achieve. Mr. Grey he knew to be honest; Mr. Grey's word he knew to be true; but he fancied that Mr. Grey had adopted this absurd mode of living with the view of cheating his neighbors by appearing to be better than others. All virtue and all vice were comprised by him in the words "good-nature" and "ill-nature." All church-going propensities,--and these propensities in his estimate extended very widely,--he scorned from the very bottom of his heart. That one set of words should be deemed more wicked than another, as in regard to swearing, was to him a sign either of hypocrisy, of idolatry, or of feminine weakness of intellect.

To women he allowed the privilege of being, in regard to thought, only something better than dogs. When his sister Martha shuddered at some exclamation from his mouth, he would say to himself simply that she was a woman, not an idiot or a hypocrite. Of women, old and young, he had been very fond, and in his manner to them very tender; but when a woman rose to a way of thinking akin to his own, she was no longer a woman to his senses. Against such a one his taste revolted. She sunk to the level of a man contaminated by petticoats. And law was hardly less absurd to him than religion. It consisted of a perplexed entanglement of rules got together so that the few might live in comfort at the expense of the many.

Robbery, if you could get to the bottom of it, was bad, as was all violence; but taxation was robbery, rent was robbery, prices fixed according to the desire of the seller and not in obedience to justice, were robbery. "Then you are the greatest of robbers," his friends would say to him. He would admit it, allowing that in such a state of society he was not prepared to go out and live naked in the streets if he could help it. But he delighted to get the better of the law, and triumphed in his own iniquity, as has been seen by his conduct in reference to his sons.

In this way he lived, and was kind to many people, having a generous and an open hand. But he was a man who could hate with a bitter hatred, and he hated most those suspected by him of mean or dirty conduct. Mr. Grey, who constantly told him to his face that he was a rascal, he did not hate at all. Thinking Mr. Grey to be in some respects idiotic, he respected him, and almost loved him. He thoroughly believed Mr. Grey, thinking him to be an a.s.s for telling so much truth unnecessarily. And he had loved his son Mountjoy in spite of all his iniquities, and had fostered him till it was impossible to foster him any longer. Then he had endeavored to love Augustus, and did not in the least love him the less because his son told him frequently of the wicked things he had done. He did not object to be told of his wickedness even by his son.

But Augustus suspected him of other things than those of which he accused him, and attempted to be sharp with him and to get the better of him at his own game. And his son laughed at him and scorned him, and regarded him as one who was troublesome only for a time, and who need not be treated with much attention, because he was there only for a time. Therefore he hated Augustus. But Augustus was his heir, and he knew that he must die soon.

But for how long could he live? And what could he yet do before he died?

A braver man than Mr. Scarborough never lived,--that is, one who less feared to die. Whether that is true courage may be a question, but it was his, in conjunction with courage of another description. He did not fear to die, nor did he fear to live. But what he did fear was to fail before he died. Not to go out with the conviction that he was vanis.h.i.+ng amid the glory of success, was to him to be wretched at his last moment, and to be wretched at his last moment, or to antic.i.p.ate that he should be so, was to him,--even so near his last hours,--the acme of misery. How much of life was left to him, so that he might recover something of success? Or was any moment left to him?

He could not sleep, so he rung his bell, and again sent for Mr. Merton.

"I have taken what you told me."

"So best," said Mr. Merton. For he did not always feel a.s.sured that this strange patient would take what had been ordered.

"And I have tried to sleep."

"That will come after a while. You would not naturally sleep just after the tonic."

"And I have been thinking of what you said about business. There is one thing I must do, and then I can remain quiet for a fortnight, unless I should be called upon to disturb my rest by dying."

"We will hope not."

"That may go as it pleases," said the sick man. "I want you now to write a letter for me to Mr. Grey." Mr. Merton had undertaken to perform the duties of secretary as well as doctor, and had thought in this way to obtain some authority over his patient for the patient's own good; but he had found already that no authority had come to him. He now sat down at the table close to the bedside, and prepared to write in accordance with Mr. Scarborough's dictation. "I think that Grey,--the lawyer, you know,--is a good man."

"The world, as far as I hear it, says that he is honest."

"I don't care a straw what the world says. The world says that I am dishonest, but I am not." Merton could only shrug his shoulders. "I don't say that because I want you to change your opinion. I don't care what you think. But I tell you a fact. I doubt whether Grey is so absolutely honest as I am, but, as things go, he is a good man."

"Certainly."

"But the world, I suppose, says that my son Augustus is honest?"

"Well, yes; I should suppose so."

"If you have looked into him and have seen the contrary, I respect your intelligence."

"I did not mean anything particular."