Читать книгу: «Ovington's Bank», страница 32
CHAPTER XLII
"I wun't do it! I wun't do it!" the Squire muttered stubbornly. "Mud and blood'll never mix. Shape the chip as you will, 'tis part of the block! Girls' whimsies are women's aches, and they that's older must judge for them. She'd only repent of it when 'twas too late, and I've paid my debt and there's an end of it."
From the hour of that scene at Ovington's he had begun to recover. From that moment he began to wear a stiff upper lip and to give his orders in hard, sharp tones, as he had been wont to give them in days when he could see; as if, in truth, his irruption into the life of the town and his action at the bank had re-established him in his own eyes. Those about him were quick to see the change-he had taken, said they, a new lease of life. "Maybe, 'tis just a flicker," Calamy observed cautiously; but even he had to admit that the flame burned higher for a time, and privately he advised the new man who filled Thomas's place "to hop it when the master spoke," or he'd hop it to some purpose.
The result was that there was a general quickening up in the old house. The master's hand was felt, and things moved to a livelier time. To some extent pride had to do with this, for the rumor of the Squire's doings in Aldersbury had flown far and wide and made him the talk of the county. He had saved the bank. He had averted ruin from hundreds. He had saved the country-side. He had paid in thirty, forty, fifty thousand pounds. Naturally his people were proud of him.
And doubtless the bold part he had played had given the old man a fillip; others had stood by, while he, blind as he was, had asserted himself, and acted, and rescued his neighbors from a great misfortune. But the stiffness he showed was not due to this only. It was assumed to protect himself. "I wun't do it! I wun't do it! It's not i' reason," he told himself over and over again; and in his own mind he fought a perpetual battle. On the one side contended the opinions of a lifetime and the prejudices of a caste, the beliefs in which he had been brought up, and a pride of birth that had come down from an earlier day; on the other, the girl's tremulous gratitude, her silence, the touch of her hand on his sleeve, the sound of her voice, the unceasing appeal of her presence.
Ay, and there were times when he was so hard put to it that he groaned aloud. No man was more of a law to himself, but at these times he fell back on the views of others. What would Woosenham say of it? How would he hold up his hands? And Chirbury-whose peerage he respected, since it was as old as his own family, if he thought little of the man? And Uvedale and Cludde? Ay, and Acherley, who, rotten fellow as he was, was still Acherley of Acherley? They had held the fort so stoutly in Aldshire, they had repelled the moneyed upstarts so proudly, they had turned so cold a shoulder on Manchester and Birmingham! They had found in their Peninsular hero, and in that little country churchyard where the maker of an empire lay resting after life's fever, so complete a justification for their own claims to leadership and to power! And no one had been more steadfast, more dogged, more hide-bound in their pride and exclusiveness than he.
Now, if he gave way, what would they say? What laughter would there not be from one end of the county to the other, what sneers, what talk of an old man's folly and an old man's weakness! For it was not even as if the man's father had been a Peel or the like, a Baring or a Smith! A small country banker, a man just risen from the mud-not even a stranger from a distance, or a merchant prince from God knows where! Oh, it was impossible. Impossible! Garth, that had been in the hands of gentlefolk, of Armigeri from Harry the Eighth, to pass into the hands, into the blood of-no, it was impossible! All the world of Aldshire would jeer at it, or be scandalized by it.
"I wun't do it!" said the Squire for the hundredth time. It was more particularly at the thought of Acherley that he squirmed. He despised Acherley, and to be despised by Acherley-that was too much!
"Of course," said a small voice within him, "he would take the name of Griffin, and in time-"
"Mud's mud," replied the Squire silently. "You can't change it."
"But he's honest," quoth the small voice.
"So's Calamy!"
"He saved-"
"And I ha' paid him! Damme, I ha' paid him! Ha' done!" And then, "It's that blow on the head has moithered me!"
Things went on in this way for a month, the Squire renewing his vigor and beginning to tramp his fields again, or with the new man at his bridle-hand to ride the old grey from point to point, learning what the men were doing, inquiring after gaps, and following the manure to the clover-ley, where the oats and barley would presently go in. Snow lay on the upper hills, grizzling the brown sheets of bracken, and dappling the green velvet of the sloping ling; the valley below was frost-bound. But the Squire had a fire within him, a fire of warring elements, that kept his blood running. He was very sharp with the men and scolded old Fewtrell. As for Thomas's successor, the lad learned to go warily and kept his tongue between his teeth.
The girl had never complained; it seemed as if that which he had done for her had silenced her, as if, she, too, had taken it for payment. But one day she was not at table, and Miss Peacock cut up his meat. She did not do it to his mind-no hand but Jos's could do it to his mind-and he was querulous and dissatisfied.
"I'm sure it's small enough, sir," Miss Peacock answered, feebly defending herself. "You said you liked it small, Mr. Griffin."
"I never said I liked mince-meat! Where is the girl? What ails her?"
"It's nothing, sir. She's been looking a little peaky the last week or two. That's all. And to-day-"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's only a headache, sir. She'll be well enough when the spring comes. Josina was always nesh-like her mother."
The Squire huddled his spoon and fork together, and pushed his plate away, muttering something about d-d sausage meat. Her mother? How old had her mother been when she-he could not remember, but certainly a mere child beside him. Twenty-five or so, he thought. And she was nesh, was she? He sat, shaving his chin with unsteady fingers, eating nothing; and when Calamy, hovering over his plate, hinted that he had not finished, he blew the butler out of the room with a blast of language that made Miss Peacock, hardened as she was, hold up her hands. And though Jos was at breakfast next morning, and answered his grumpy questions as if nothing were amiss, a little seed of fear had been sown in the Squire's mind that grew as fast as Jonah's gourd, and before noon threatened to shut out the sun.
A silk purse could not be made out of a sow's ear. But a good leather purse, that might pass in time-the lad was stout and honest. And his father, mud, certainly, and mud of the pretentious kind that the Squire hated: mud that affected by the aid of gilding to pass for fine clay. But honest? Well, in his own way, perhaps: it remained to be seen. And times were changing, changing for the worse; but he could not deny that they were changing. So gradually, slowly, unwelcome at the best, there grew up in the old man's mind the idea of surrender. If the money were paid back, say in three months, say in six months-well, he would think of it. He would begin to think of it. He would begin to think of it as a thing possible some day, at some very distant date-if there were more peakiness. The girl did not whine, did not torment him, did not complain; and he thought the more of her for that. But if she ailed, then, failing her, there was no one to come after him at Garth, no one of his blood to follow him-except that Bourdillon whelp, and by G-d he should not have an acre or a rood of it, or a pound of it. Never! Never!
Failing her? The Squire felt the air turn cold, and he hung, shivering, over the fire. What if, while he sought to preserve the purity of the old blood, the old traditions, he cut the thread, and the name of Griffin passed out of remembrance, as in his long life he had known so many, many old names pass away-pass into limbo?
Ay, into limbo. He saw his own funeral procession crawl-a long black snake-down the winding drive, here half-hidden by the sunken banks, there creeping forth again into the light. He saw the bleak sunshine fall on the pall that draped the farm-wagon, and heard the slow heavy note of the Garthmyle bell, and the scuffling of innumerable feet that alone broke the solemn silence. If she were not there at window or door to see it go, or in the old curtained pew to await its coming-if the church vault closed on him, the last of his race and blood!
He sat long, thinking of this.
And one day, nearly two months after his visit to the bank-in the meantime he had been twice into town at the Bench-he was riding on the land with Fewtrell at his stirrup, when the bailiff told him that there was a stranger in the field.
"Which field?" he asked.
"Where they ha' just lifted the turnips," the man said. "Oh!" said the Squire. "Who is it? What's he doing there?"
"Well, I'm thinking," said Fewtrell, "as it's the young gent I've seen here more 'n once. Same as asked me one day why we didn't drill 'em in wider."
"The devil, he did!" the Squire exclaimed, kicking up the old mare, who was leaning over sleepily.
"Called 'em Radicals," said Fewtrell, grinning. "Them there Radical Swedes," says he. "Dunno what he meant. 'If you plant Radicals, best plant 'em Radical fashion,' says he."
"Devil he did!" repeated the Squire. "Said that, did he?"
"Ay, to be sure. He used to come across with a gun field-way from Acherley; oh, as much as once a week I'd see him. And he'd know every crop as we put in, a'most same as I did. Very spry he was about it, I'll say that."
"Is it the banker's son?" asked the Squire on a sudden suspicion.
"Well, I think he be," Fewtrell answered, shading his eyes. "He be going up to the house now."
"Well, you can take me in," to the groom. "I'll go by the gap."
The groom demurred timidly; the grey might leap at the gap. But the Squire was obstinate, and the old mare, who knew he was blind as well as any man upon the place, and knew, too, when she could indulge in a frolic and when not, bore, him out delicately, stepping over the thorn-stubs as if she walked on eggs.
He was at the door in the act of dismounting when Clement appeared. "D'you want me?" the old man asked bluntly.'
"If you please, sir," Clement answered. He had walked all the way from Aldersbury, having much to think of and one question which lay heavy on his mind. That was-how would it be with him when he walked back?
"Then come in." And feeling for the door-post with his hand, the Squire entered the house and turned with the certainty of long practice into the dining-room. He walked to the table as firmly as if he could see, and touching it with one hand he drew up with the other his chair. He sat down. "You'd best sit," he said grudgingly. "I can't see, but you can. Find a chair."
"My father has sent me with the money," Clement explained. "I have a cheque here and the necessary papers. He would have come himself, sir, to renew his thanks for aid as timely as it was generous and-and necessary. But" – Clement boggled a little over the considered phrase, he was nervous and his voice betrayed it-"he thought-I was to say-"
"It's all there?"
"Yes, sir, principal and interest."
"Have you drawn a receipt?"
"Yes, sir, I've brought one with me. But if you would prefer that it should be paid to Mr. Welsh-my father thought that that might be so?"
"Umph! All there, is it?"
"Yes, sir."
The old man did not speak for awhile. He seemed to be at a loss, and Clement, who had other and more serious business on his mind, and had his own reasons for feeling ill at ease, waited anxiously. He was desperately afraid of making a false step.
Suddenly, "Who was your grandfather?" the Squire asked.
Clement started and colored. "He had the same name as my father," he said. "He was a clothier in Aldersbury."
"Ay, I mind him. I mind him now. And his father, young man?"
"His name was Clement," and foreseeing the next question, "he was a yeoman at Easthope."
"And his father?"
Clement reddened painfully. He saw only too well to what these questions were tending. "I don't know, sir," he said.
"And you set up-you set up," said the Squire, leaning forward and speaking very slowly, "to marry my heiress?"
"No, sir, your daughter!" Clement said, his face burning. "If she'd not a penny-"
"Pho! Don't tell me!" the old man growled, and to Clement's surprise-whose ears were tingling-he relapsed into silence again. It was a silence very ominous. It seemed to Clement that no silence had ever been so oppressive, that no clock had ever ticked so loudly as the tall clock that stood between the windows behind him. "You know," said the old man at last, "you're a d-d impudent fellow. You've no birth, you're nobody, and I don't know that you've much money. You've gone behind my back and you've stole my girl. You've stole her! My father'd ha' shot you, and good reason, before he'd ha' let it come to this. But it's part my fault," with a sigh. "She've seen naught of the world and don't know the difference between silk and homespun or what's fitting for her. You're nobody, and you've naught to offer-I'm plain, young gentleman, and it's better-but I believe you're a man, and I believe you're honest."
"And I love her!" Clement said softly, his eyes shining.
"Ay," drily, "and maybe it would be better for her if her father didn't! But there it is. There it is. That's all that's to be said for you." He sat silent, looking straight before him with his sightless eyes, his hands on the knob of his stick. "And I dunno as I make much of that-'tis easy for a man to love a maid-but the misfortune is that she thinks she loves you. Well, I'm burying things as have been much to me all my life, things I never thought to lose or part from while I lived. I'm burying them deep, and God knows I may regret it sorely. But you may go to her. She's somewhere about the place. But" – arresting Clement's exclamation as he rose to his feet-"you'll ha' to wait. You'll ha' to wait till I say the word, and maybe 'tis all moonshine, and she'll see it is. Maybe 'tis all a girl's whimsy, and when she knows more of you she'll find it out."
"God bless you, sir!" Clement cried. "I'll wait. I'm not afraid. I've no fear of that. And if I can make myself worthy of her-"
"You'll never do that," said the old man sternly, as he bent lower over his stick. He heard the door close and he knew that Clement had gone-gone on wings, gone on feet lighter than thistle-down, gone, young and strong, his pulses leaping, to his love.
The Squire was too old for tears, but his lip trembled. It was not alone the sacrifice that he had made that moved him-the sacrifice of his pride, his prejudices, his traditions. It was not only the immolation of his own will, his hopes and plans-his cherished plans for her. But he was giving her up. He was resigning that of which he had only just learned the worth, that on which in his blindness he depended every hour, that which made up all of youth and brightness and cheerfulness that was left to him between this and the end. He had sent the man to her, and they would think no more of him. And in doing this he had belied every belief in which he had been brought up and the faith which he had inherited from an earlier day-and maybe he had been a fool!
But by and by it appeared that they had not forgotten him, or one, at any rate, had not. He had not been alone five minutes before the door opened behind him, and closed again, and he felt Josina's arms round his neck, her head on his breast. "Oh, father, I know, I know," she cried. "I know what you have done for me! And I shall never forget it-never! And he is good. Oh, father, indeed, indeed, he is good!"
"There, there," he said, stroking her head. "Go back to him. But, mind you," hurriedly, "I don't promise anything yet. In a year, maybe, I'll talk about it."
