Mr. Scarborough's Family. Anthony Trollope
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of its kind, and the wine was all that it ought to be. During dinner not a word was said as to Mountjoy, nor as to the affairs of the estate. Augustus, who was old for his age, and had already practised himself much in London life, knew well how to make himself agreeable. There was plenty to be said while young Pitcher was passing in and out of the room, so that there appeared no awkward vacancies of silence while one course succeeded the other. The weather was very hot, the grouse were very tempting, everybody was very dull, and members of Parliament more stupid than anybody else; but a good time was coming. Would Harry come down to Tretton and see the old governor? There was not much to offer him in the way of recreation, but when September came the partridges would abound. Harry gave a half-promise that he would go to Tretton for a week, and Augustus Scarborough expressed himself as much gratified. Harry at the moment thought of no reason why he should not go to Tretton, and thus committed himself to the promise; but he afterward felt that Tretton was of all places the last which he ought just at present to visit.
At last Pitcher and the cheese were gone, and young Scarborough produced his cigars. "I want to smoke directly I've done eating," he said. "Drinking goes with smoking as well as it does with eating, so there need be no stop for that. Now, tell me, Annesley, what is it that you think about Mountjoy?"
There was an abruptness in the question which for the moment struck Harry dumb. How was he to say what he thought about Mountjoy Scarborough, even though he should have no feeling to prevent him from expressing the truth? He knew, or thought that he knew, Mountjoy Scarborough to be a thorough blackguard; one whom no sense of honesty kept from spending money, and who was now a party to robbing his creditors without the slightest compunction—for it was in Harry's mind that Mountjoy and his father were in league together to save the property by rescuing it from the hands of the Jews. He would have thought the same as to the old squire—only that the old squire had not interfered with him in reference to Florence Mountjoy.
And then there was present to his mind the brutal attack which had been made on himself in the street. According to his views Mountjoy Scarborough was certainly a blackguard; but he did not feel inclined quite to say so to the brother, nor was he perfectly certain as to his host's honesty. It might be that the three Scarboroughs were all in a league together; and if so, he had done very wrong, as he then remembered, to say that he would go down to Tretton. When, therefore, he was asked the question he could only hold his tongue.
"I suppose you have some scruple in speaking because he's my brother? You may drop that altogether."
"I think that his career has been what the novel-reader would call romantic; but what I, who am not one of them, should describe as unfortunate."
"Well, yes; taking it altogether it has been unfortunate. I am not a soft-hearted fellow, but I am driven to pity him. The worst of it is that, had not my father been induced at last to tell the truth, from most dishonest causes, he would not have been a bit better off than he is. I doubt whether he could have raised another couple of thousand on the day when he went. If he had done so then, and again more and more, to any amount you choose to think of, it would have been the same with him."
"I suppose so."
"His lust for gambling was a bottomless quicksand, which no possible amount of winning could ever have satiated. Let him enter his club with five thousand pounds at his banker's and no misfortune could touch him. He being such as he is—or, alas! for aught we know, such as he was—the escape which the property has had cannot but be regarded as very fortunate. I don't care to talk much of myself in particular, though no wrong can have been done to a man more infinite than that which my father contrived for me."
"I cannot understand your father," said Harry. In truth, there was something in Scarborough's manner in speaking of his father which almost produced belief in Harry's mind. He began to doubt whether Augustus was in the conspiracy.
"No, I should say not. It is hard to understand that an English gentleman should have the courage to conceive such a plot, and the wit to carry it out. If Mountjoy had run only decently straight, or not more than indecently crooked, I should have been a younger brother, practising law in the Temple to the end of my days. The story of Esau and of Jacob is as nothing to it. But that is not the most remarkable circumstance. My father, for purposes of his own, which includes the absolute throwing over of Mountjoy's creditors, changes his plan, and is pleased to restore to me that of which he had resolved to rob me. What father would dare to look in the face of the son whom he had thus resolved to defraud? My father tells me the story with a gentle chuckle, showing almost as much indifference to Mountjoy's ruin as to my recovered prosperity. He has not a blush when he reveals it all. He has not a word to say, or, as far as I can see, a thought as to the world's opinion. No doubt he is supposed to be dying. I do presume that three or four months will see the end of him. In the mean time he takes it all as quietly as though he had simply lent a five-pound note to Mountjoy out of my pocket."
"You, at any rate, will get your property?"
"Oh, yes; and that, no doubt, is his argument when he sees me. He is delighted to have me down at Tretton, and, to tell the truth, I do not feel the slightest animosity toward him. But as I look at him I think him to be the most remarkable old gentleman that the world has ever produced. He is quite unconscious that I have any ground of complaint against him."
"He has probably thought that the circumstances of your brother's birth should not militate against his prospects."
"But the law, my dear fellow," said Scarborough, getting up from his chair and standing with his cigar between his finger and thumb—"the law thinks otherwise. The making of all right and wrong in this world depends on the law. The half-crown in my pocket is merely mine because of the law. He did choose to marry my mother before I was born, but did not choose to go through that ceremony before my brother's time. That may be a trifle to you, or to my moral feeling may be a trifle; but because of that trifle all Tretton will be my property, and his attempt to rob me of it was just the same as though he should break into a bank and steal what he found there. He knows that just as well as I do, but to suit his own purposes he did it."
There was something in the way in which the young man spoke both of his father and mother which made Harry's flesh creep. He could not but think of his own father and his own mother, and his feelings in regard to them. But here this man was talking of the misdoings of the one parent and the other with the most perfect sang-froid. "Of course I understand all that," said Harry.
"There is a manner of doing evil so easy and indifferent as absolutely to quell the general feeling respecting it. A man shall tell you that he has committed a murder in a tone so careless as to make you feel that a murder is nothing. I don't suppose my father can be punished for his attempt to rob me of twenty thousand a year, and therefore he talks to me about it as though it were a good joke. Not only that, but he expects me to receive it in the same way. Upon the whole, he prevails. I find myself not in the least angry with him, and rather obliged to him than otherwise for allowing me to be his eldest son."
"What must Mountjoy's feelings be!" said Harry.
"Exactly; what must be Mountjoy's feelings! There is no need to consider my father's, but poor Mountjoy's! I don't suppose that he can be dead."
"I should think not."
"While a man is alive he can carry himself off, but when a fellow is dead it requires at least one or probably two to carry him. Men do not wish to undertake such a work secretly unless they've been concerned in the murder; and then there will have been a noise which must have been heard, or blood which must have been seen, and the body will at last be forthcoming, or some sign of its destruction. I do not think he be dead."
"I should hope not," said Harry, rather tamely, and feeling that he was guilty of a falsehood by the manner in which he expressed his hope.
"When was it you saw him last?" Scarborough asked the question with an abruptness which was predetermined, but which did not quite take Harry aback.
"About three months since—in London," said Harry, going back in his memory to the last meeting, which had occurred before the squire had declared his purpose.
"Ah;—you haven't seen him, then,