That Boy Of Norcott's Part 12

"Does papa want me?" cried I, sitting up in bed; "did you say papa wanted me?"

"Yes, sir," said a deep voice; and my father entered the room, dressed for the street, and with his hat on.

"You may leave us," said he to Nixon; and as the man withdrew, my father took a chair and sat down close to my bedside.

"I have sent three messages to you this morning," said he, gravely, "and am forced at last to come myself."

I was beginning my apologies, when he stopped me, and said, "That will do; I have no wish to be told why you overslept yourself; indeed, I have already heard more on that score than I care for."

He paused, and though perhaps he expected me to say something, I was too much terrified to speak.

"I perceive." said he, "you understand me; you apprehend that I know of your doings of last night, and that any attempt at excuse is hopeless.

I have not come here to reproach you for your misconduct; I reproach myself for a mistaken estimate of you; I ought to have known--and if you had been a horse I would have known--that your crossbreeding would tell on you. The bad drop was sure to betray itself. I will not dwell on this, nor have I time. Your conduct last night makes my continued residence here impossible. I cannot continue in a city where my tradespeople have become my guests, and where the honors of my house have been extended to my tailor and my butcher. I shall leave this, therefore, as soon as I can conclude my arrangements to sell this place: you must quit it at once. Eccles will be ready to start with you this evening for the Rhine, and then for the interior of Germany,--I suspect Weimar will do. He will be paymaster, and you will conform to his wishes strictly as regards expense. Whether you study or not, whether you employ your time profitably and creditably, or whether you pa.s.s it in indolence, is a matter that completely regards yourself. As for me, my conscience is acquitted when I provide you with the means of acquirement, and I no more engage you to benefit by these advantages than I do to see you eat the food that is placed before you. The compact that unites us enjoins distinct duties from each. You need not write to me till I desire you to do so; and when I think it proper we should meet, I will tell you."

If, while he spoke these harsh words to me, the slightest touch of feeling--had one trace of even sorrow crossed his face, my whole heart would have melted at once, and I would have thrown myself at his feet for forgiveness. There was, however, a something so pitiless in his tone, and a look so full of scorn in his steadfast eye, that every sentiment of pride within me--that same pride I inherited from himself--stimulated me to answer him, and I said boldly: "If the people I saw here last night were not as well born as your habitual guests, sir, I 'll venture to say there was nothing in their manner or deportment to be ashamed of."

"I am told that Mademoiselle Pauline Delorme was charming," said he; and the sarcasm of his glance covered me with shame and confusion. He had no need to say more: I could not utter a word.

"This is a topic I will not discuss with you, sir," said he, after a pause. "I intended you to be a gentleman, and to live with gentlemen.

_Your_ tastes incline differently, and I make no opposition to them. As I have told you already, I was willing to launch you into life; I 'll not engage to be your pilot. Any interest I take or could take in you must be the result of your own qualities. These have not impressed me strongly up to this; and were I to judge by what I have seen, I should send you back to those you came from."

"Do so, then, if it will only give me back the nature I brought away with me!" cried I, pa.s.sionately; and my throat swelled till I felt almost choked with emotion.

"That nature," said he, with a sneer on the word, "was costumed, if I remember right, in a linen blouse and a pair of patched shoes; and I believe they have been preserved along with some other family relics."

I bethought me at once of the tower and its humble furniture, and a sense of terror overcame me, that I was in presence of one who could cherish hate with such persistence.

"The fumes of your last night's debauch are some excuse for your bad manners, sir," said he, rising. "I leave you to sleep them off; only remember that the train starts at eight this evening, and it is my desire you do not miss it."

With this he left me. I arose at once and began to dress. It was a slow proceeding, for I would often stop, and sit down to think what course would best befit me to take at this moment. At one instant it seemed to me I ought to follow him, and declare that the splendid slavery in which I lived had no charm for me,--that the faintest glimmering of self-respect and independence was more my ambition than all the luxuries that surrounded me; and when I had resolved I would do this, a sudden dread of his presence,--his eye that I could never face without shrinking,--the tones of his voice that smote me like a lash,--so abashed me that I gave up the effort with despair.

Might he not consent to give me some pittance--enough to save her from the burden of my support--and send me back to my mother? Oh, if I could summon courage to ask this! This a.s.sistance need be continued only for a few years, for I hoped and believed I should not always have to live as a dependant What if I were to write him a few lines to this purport? I could do this even better than speak it.

I sat down at once and began:--

"Dear papa,"--he would never permit me to use a more endearing word.

"Dear papa, I hope you will forgive me troubling you about myself and my future. I would like to fit myself for some career or calling by which I might become independent. I could work very hard and study very closely if I were back with my mother."

As I reached this far, the door opened, and Eccles appeared.

"All right!" cried he; "I was afraid I should catch you in bed still, and I 'm glad you 're up and preparing for the road. Are you nearly ready?"

"Not quite; I wanted to write a letter before I go. I was just at it."

"Write from Verviers or Bonn; you'll have lots of time on the road."

"Ay, but my letter might save me from the journey if I sent it off now."

He looked amazed at this, and I at once told him my plan and showed him what I had written.

"You don't mean to say you 'd have courage to send this to your father?"

"And why not?"

"Well, all I have to say is, don't do it till I 'm off the premises; for I 'd not be here when he reads it for a trifle. My dear Digby," said he, with a changed tone, "you don't know Sir Roger; you don't know the violence of his temper if he imagines himself what he calls outraged, which sometimes means questioned. Take your hat and stick, and go seek your fortune, in Heaven's name, if you must; but don't set out on your life's journey with a curse or a kick, or possibly both. If I preach patience, my dear boy, I have had to practise it too. Put up your traps in your portmanteau; come down and take some dinner: we 'll start with the night-train; and take my word for it, we 'll have a jolly ramble and enjoy ourselves heartily. If I know anything of life, it is that there's no such mistake in the world as hunting up annoyances. Let them find us if they can, but let us never run after them."

"My heart is too heavy for such enjoyment as you talk of."

"It won't be so to-morrow, or, at all events, the day after. Come, stir yourself now with your packing; a thought has just struck me that you 'll be very grateful to me for, when I tell it you."

"What is it?" asked I, half carelessly.

"You must ask with another guess-look in your eye if you expect me to tell you."

"You could tell me nothing that would gladden me."

"Nor propose anything that you'd like?" asked he.

"Nor that, either," said I, despondingly.

"Oh, if that be the case, I give up my project; not that it was much of a project, after all. What I was going to suggest was that instead of dining here we should put our traps into a cab, and drive down to Delorme's and have a pleasant little dinner there, in the garden; it's quite close to the railroad, so that we could start at the last whistle."

"That does sound pleasantly," said I; "there's nothing more irksome in its way than hanging about a station waiting for departure."

"So, then, you agree?" cried he, with a malicious twinkle in his eye that I affected not to understand.

"Yes," said I, indolently; "I see little against it; and if nothing else, it saves me a leave-taking with Captain Hotham and Cleremont."

"By the way, you are not to ask to see Madame; your father reminded me to tell you this. The doctors say she is not to be disturbed on any account. What a chance that I did not forget this!"

Whether it was that I was too much concerned for my own misfortunes to have a thought that was not selfish, or that another leave-taking that loomed in the distance was uppermost in my thoughts, certain it is, I felt this privation far less acutely than I might.

"She's a nice little woman, and deserves a better lot than she has met with."

"What sort of dinner will Delorme give us?" said I, affecting the air of a man about town, but in reality throwing out the bait to lead the talk in that direction.

"First-rate, if we let him; that is, if we only say, 'Order dinner for us, Monsieur Pierre.' There's no man understands such a mandate more thoroughly."

"Then that's what I shall say," cried I, "as I cross his threshold."

"He'll serve you Madeira with your soup, and Stein-berger with your fish, thirty francs a bottle, each of them."

"Be it so. We shall drink to our pleasant journey," said I; and I actually thought my voice had caught the tone and cadence of my father's as I spoke.

CHAPTER XIV. A GOOD-BYE