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Mr. Scarborough's Family, a novel by Anthony Trollope |
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Part 2 - Chapter 39. How The Letters Were Received |
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_ PART II CHAPTER XXXIX. HOW THE LETTERS WERE RECEIVED We must now describe the feelings of Mr. Scarborough's correspondents as they received his letters. When Mr. Grey begun to read that which was addressed to him he declared that on no consideration would he go down to Tretton. But when he came to inquire within himself as to his objection he found that it lay chiefly in his great dislike to Augustus Scarborough. For poor Mountjoy, as he called him, he entertained a feeling of deep pity,--and pity we know, is akin to love. And for the squire, he in his heart felt but little of that profound dislike which he was aware such conduct as the squire's ought to have generated. "He is the greatest rascal that I ever knew," he said again and again, both to Dolly and to Mr. Barry. But yet he did not regard him as an honest man regards a rascal, and was angry with himself in consequence. He knew that there remained with him even some spark of love for Mr. Scarborough, which to himself was inexplicable. From the moment in which he had first admitted the fact that Augustus Scarborough was the true heir-at-law, he had been most determined in taking care that that heirship should be established. It must be known to all men that Mountjoy was not the eldest son of his father, as the law required him to be for the inheritance of the property, and that Augustus was the eldest son; but in arranging that these truths should be notorious it had come to pass that he had learned to hate Augustus with an intensity that had redounded to the advantage both of Mountjoy and their father. It must be so. Augustus must become Augustus Scarborough, Esquire, of Tretton,--but the worse luck for Tretton and all connected with it. And Mr. Grey did resolve that, when that day should come, all relation between himself and Tretton should cease. It had never occurred to him that, by redeeming the post-obit bonds, Mountjoy would become capable of owning and enjoying any property that might be left to him. With Tretton, all the belongings of Tretton, in the old-fashioned way, would, of course, go to the heir. The belongings of Tretton, which were personal property, would, in themselves, amount to wealth for a younger son. That which Mr. Scarborough would in this way be able to bequeath might, probably, be worth thirty thousand pounds. Out of the proceeds of the real property the debts had been paid. And because Augustus had consented so to pay them he was now to be mulcted of those loose belongings which gave its charm to Tretton! Because Augustus had paid Mountjoy's debts Mountjoy was to be enabled to rob Augustus! There was a wickedness in this redolent of the old squire. But it was a wickedness in arranging which Mr. Grey hesitated to participate. As he thought of it, however, he could not but feel what a very clever man he had for a client. "It will all go to the gambling-table, of course," he said that night to Dolly. "It is no affair of ours." "No; but when a lawyer is consulted he has to think of the prudent or imprudent disposition of property." "Mr. Scarborough hasn't consulted you, papa." "I must look at it as though he had. He tells me what he intends to do, and I am bound to give him my advice. I cannot advise him to bestow all these things on Augustus, whom I regard as a long way the worst of the family." "You need not care about that." "And here, again," continued Mr. Grey, "comes up the question,--what is it that duty demands? Augustus is the eldest son, and is entitled to what the law allots him; but Mountjoy was brought up as the eldest son, and is certainly entitled to what provision the father can make him." "You cannot provide for such a gambler." "I don't know that that comes within my duty. It is not my fault that Mountjoy is a gambler, any more than that it is my fault that Augustus is a beast. Gambler and beast, there they are. And, moreover, nothing will turn the squire from his purpose. I am only a tool in his hands,--a trowel for the laying of his mortar and bricks. Of course I must draw his will, and shall do it with some pleasure, because it will dispossess Augustus." Then Mr. Grey went to bed, as did also Dolly; but she was not at all surprised at being summoned to his couch after she had been an hour in her own bed. "I think I shall go down to Tretton," said Mr. Grey. "You declared that you would never go there again." "So I did; but I did not know then how much I might come to hate Augustus Scarborough." "Would you go to Tretton merely to injure him?" said his daughter. "I have been thinking about that," said Mr. Grey. "I don't know that I would go simply to do him an injury; but I think that I would go to see that justice is properly done." "That can be arranged without your going to Tretton." "By putting our heads together I think we can contrive that the deed shall be more effectually performed. What we must attempt to do is to save this property from going to the gambling-table. There is only one way that occurs to me." "What is that?" "It must be left to his wife." "He hasn't a wife." "It must be left to some woman whom he will consent to marry. There are three objects:--to keep it from Augustus; to give the enjoyment of it to Mountjoy; and to prevent Mountjoy from gambling with it. The only thing I can see is a wife." "There is a girl he wants to marry," said Dolly. "But she doesn't want to marry him, and I doubt whether he can be got to marry any one else. There is still a peck of difficulties." "Oh, papa, I wish you would wash your hands of the Scarboroughs." "I must go to Tretton first," said he. "And now, my dear, you are doing no good by sitting up here and talking to me." Then, with a smile, Dolly took herself off to her own chamber. Mountjoy, when he got his letter, was sitting over a late breakfast in Victoria Street. It was near twelve o'clock, and he was enjoying the delicious luxury of having his breakfast to eat, with a cigar after it, and nothing else that he need do. But the fruition of all these comforts was somewhat marred by the knowledge that he had no such dinner to expect. He must go out and look for a dinner among the eating-houses. The next morning would bring him no breakfast, and if he were to remain longer in Victoria Street he must do so in direct opposition to the owner of the establishment. He had that morning received notice to quit, and had been told that the following breakfast would be the last meal served to him. "Let it be good of its kind," Mountjoy had said. "I believe you care for nothing but eating and drinking." "There's little else that you can do for me." And so they had parted. Mountjoy had taken the precaution of having his letters addressed to the house of the friendly bootmaker; and now, as he was slowly pouring out his first cup of coffee, and thinking how nearly it must be his last, his father's letter was brought to him. The letter had been delayed one day, as he himself had omitted to call for it. It was necessarily a sad time for him. He was a man who fought hard against melancholy, taking it as a primary rule of life that, for such a one as he had become, the pleasures of the immediate moment should suffice. If one day, or better still, one night of excitement was in store for him, the next day should be regarded as the unlimited future, for which no man can be responsible. But such philosophy will too frequently be insufficient for the stoutest hearts. Mountjoy's heart would occasionally almost give way, and then his thoughts would be dreary enough. Hunger, absolute hunger, without the assured expectation of food, had never yet come upon him; but in order to put a stop to its cravings, if he should find it troublesome to bear, he had already provided himself with pistol and bullets. And now, with his cup of coffee before him, aromatic, creamy, and hot, with a filleted sole rolled up before him on a little dish, three or four plover's eggs, on which to finish, lying by, and, on the distance of the table, a chasse of brandy, of which he already well knew the virtues, he got his father's letter. He did not at first open it, disliking all thoughts as to his father. Then gradually he tore the envelope, and was slow in understanding the full meaning of the last lines. He did not at once perceive the irony of "his brother's kindly interference," and of the "generosity" which had enabled him, Mountjoy, to be a recipient of property. But his father purposed to do something for his benefit. Gradually it dawned upon him that his father could only do that something effectually because of his brother's dealings with the creditors. Then the chairs and the tables, and the gem or two, and the odd volumes, one by one, made themselves intelligible. That a father should write so to one son, and should so write of another, was marvellous. But then his father was a marvellous man, whose character he was only beginning to understand. His father, he told himself, had, fortunately, taken it into his head to hate Augustus, and intended, in consequence, to strip Tretton and the property generally of all their outside personal belongings. Yes; he thought that, with such an object before him, he would certainly go and see Mr. Grey. And if Mr. Grey should so advise him he would go down to Tretton. On such business as this he would consent to see his father. He did not think that just at present he need have recourse to his pistol for his devices. He could not on the very day go to Tretton, as it would be necessary that he should write to his father first. His brother would probably extend his hospitality for a couple of days when he should hear of the proposed journey, and, if not, would lend him money for his present purposes, or under existing circumstances he might probably be able to borrow it from Mr. Grey. With a heart elevated to almost absolute bliss he ate his breakfast, and drank his chasse, and smoked his cigar, and then rose slowly, that he might proceed to Mr. Grey's chambers. But at this moment Augustus came in. He had only breakfasted at his own club, much less comfortably than he would have done at home, in order that he might not sit at table with his brother. He had now returned so that he might see to Mountjoy's departure. "After all, Augustus, I am going down to Tretton," said the elder brother as he folded up his father's letter. "What argument has the old man used now?" Mountjoy did not think it well to tell his brother the exact nature of the arguments used, and therefore put the letter into his pocket. "He wishes to say something to me about property," said Mountjoy. Then some idea of the old squire's scheme fell with a crushing weight of anticipated sorrow on Augustus. In a moment it all occurred to him what his father might do, what injuries he might inflict; and,--saddest of all feelings,--there came the immediate reflection that it had all been rendered possible by his own doings. With the conviction that so much might be left away from him, there came also a farther feeling that, after all, there was a chance that his father had invented the story of his brother's illegitimacy, that Mountjoy was now free from debt, and that Tretton, with all its belongings, might now go back to him. That his father would do it if it were possible he did not doubt. From week to week he had waited impatiently for his father's demise, and had expected little or none of that mental activity which his father had exercised. "What a fool he had been," he said to himself, sitting opposite to Mountjoy, who in the vacancy of the moment had lighted another cigar; "what an ass!" Had he played his cards better, had he comforted and flattered and cosseted the old man, Mountjoy might have gone his own way to the dogs. Now, at the best, Tretton would come to him stripped of everything; and,--at the worst,--no Tretton would come to him at all. "Well, what are you going to do?" he said, roughly. "I think I shall, probably, go down and just see the governor." "All your feelings about your mother, then, are blown to the winds?" "My feelings about your mother are not blown to the winds at all; but to speak of her to you would be wasting breath." "I hadn't the pleasure of knowing her," said Augustus. "And I am not aware that she did me any great kindness in bringing me into the world. Do you go to Tretton this afternoon?" "Probably not." "Or to-morrow?" "Possibly to-morrow," said Mountjoy. "Because I shall find it convenient to have your room." "To-day, of course, I cannot stir. To-morrow morning I should, at any rate, like to have my breakfast." Here he paused for a reply, but none came from his brother. "I must have some money to go down to Tretton with; I suppose you can lend it me just for the present?" "Not a shilling," said Augustus, in thorough ill-humor. "I shall be able to pay you very shortly." "Not a shilling. The return I have had from you for all that I have done is not of a nature to make me do more." "If I had ever thought that you had expended a sovereign except for the object of furthering some plot of your own, I should have been grateful. As it is I do not know that we owe very much to each other." Then he left the room, and, getting into a cab, went away to Lincoln's Inn. Harry Annesley received Mr. Scarborough's letter down at Buston, and was much surprised by it. He had not spent the winter hitherto very pleasantly. His uncle he had never seen, though he had heard from day to day sundry stories of his wooing. He had soon given up his hunting, feeling himself ashamed, in his present nameless position, to ride Joshua Thoroughbung's horses. He had taken to hard reading, but the hard reading had failed, and he had been given up to the miseries of his position. The hard reading had been continued for a fortnight or three weeks, during which he had, at any rate, respected himself, but in an evil hour he had allowed it to escape from him, and now was again miserable. Then the invitation from Tretton had been received. "I have got a letter; 'tis from Mr. Scarborough of Tretton." "What does Mr. Scarborough say?" "He wants me to go down there." "Do you know Mr. Scarborough? I believe you have altogether quarrelled with his son?" "Oh yes; I have quarrelled with Augustus, and have had an encounter with Mountjoy not on the most friendly terms. But the father and Mountjoy seem to be reconciled. You can see his letter. I, at any rate, shall go there." To this Mr. Annesley senior had no objection to make. _ |
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